Crash Bandicoot: Rumble in the Rustlands
by greenth1ng
Summary: When the world comes to an end, all the heroes and villains of the Crash Bandicoot universe must put aside their differences and work together to stop a new tyranical ruler from claiming the world as his own. Rated M for action violence/peril, some disturbing material, and brief partial nudity.
1. The Last Peaceful Day on Earth

It is a peaceful day on Wumpa Island, home of the orange pelted, dimwitted but goodhearted marsupial, Crash Bandicoot. Birds are singing, cute and cuddly critters are scampering about, and Crash, his teenage sister Coco and all of their friends (Polar, Pura, Crunch Bandicoot, Crash's girlfriend Tawna, the Nitro Squad (Isabella, Megumi, Ami & Liz), Baby T., Baby Crash, Baby Coco, Pasadena O'Possum, Ebenezer Von Clutch, King Chicken, Yaya Panda, Hasty, chicken reporters Chick and Stew, and even Penta Penguin & Fake Crash) are all gathered together at Crash's place for a pleasant afternoon cookout picnic. What everyone doesn't know, however, is that this particular day would be one that they would never forget...

"Mmm-mm! I'm starving!" exclaims Pasadena O'Possum. "Where are those burgers at?"

"Calm yourself, Pasadena, dear." Megumi says, resting her hand on Pasadena's shoulder. "Crash and Coco will have them out here in just a few moments."

From inside the house, Coco calls out, "Who's hungry?" getting everyone's attention. Moments later, she and Crash emerge from the house with several plates of burger patties and condiments, ready to get the picnic started.

"Because me and Crash here have cooked too many burgers!" Coco says happily.

"It's about time! Let's eat!" Ami happily exclaims, as she and the others approach Crash and Coco for their burgers.

As everyone grabs a plate and queues up to get their food, Chick asks, "Hold up! There aren't any chicken burgers in that pile, are there?"

"Chicken burgers?!" shouts Stew. "You mean to tell me that they actually cook our kind into patties?! The horror!" He screams and faints from shock.

Crunch scoffs and says, "Drama queen."

As everyone settles down to eat and chats indistinctly, Coco finds Pura happily sitting with Polar, Baby T., Baby Crash, Baby Coco and her penpal turned bestie, Yaya Panda, and sits down with them.

"Hey, Yaya!" Coco says to her. "How's everything going? I see you've met our cute and cuddly animal friends."

"I know!" exclaims Yaya as she pinches Polar's cheeks. "They are so cute!"

"I know, right?" Coco says. "They take to kind people real easily. You'll learn to love 'em just as much as me and Crash do!"

As they continue to make small talk, Isabella, who has become a mother figure to Coco, approaches Coco from behind with a playful grin on her face and starts to playfully tickle her.

Coco laughs as Isabella continues to tickle her and says, "Okay, Isabella! Okay! I surrender! You got me!"

Isabella giggles and, as she holds a Frisbee in her hand, says to Coco, "Come along, Coco dear. What do you say we play a game of catch, huh?"

"I'd love to!" exclaims Coco as she gets up, before turning to Yaya and asking her, "You coming, Yaya?"

"You two go on ahead! I've got my new animal friends to keep me company." Yaya tells her as she rubs Polar's head.

The two of them smile at each other as Coco follows Isabella to the beach, with Pura following close behind. Once they get to the beach, Isabella turns and sees Pura nuzzling his head against her leg.

"Oh! I see Pura wants to play, too!" Isabella says gleefully. "You're up, Coco!" She tosses the Frisbee to Coco and the three of them start to play catch, happily laughing and giggling as they play.

Isabella happily playing with Coco and Pura attracts the attention of the newest Crash character, Hasty the Moose, an ace pilot with a sporty side who dropped by to visit Crash and the others at their picnic. As he walks around looking for someone to make small talk with as he eats his food, he lays eyes on Isabella from afar and is immediately smitten by her beauty as she happily laughs.

Wanting to introduce himself to her, but not having the courage to do so by himself, he gulps down his food and approaches Crash, Tawna and Liz, who are sitting on the front porch of Crash's house making small talk.

"Oh, hey, Hasty!" Tawna happily exclaims as she notices Hasty approaching them. "We weren't expecting to see you here!"

"Hasty?" Liz asks curiously.

"Yeah, we met him during our Winter Festival Grand Prix season." Tawna replies. "He's a real chill dude."

Crash waves at Hasty as Tawna turns back to him, asking, "So what's going on, Hasty? What's the latest from our main moose friend?"

Hasty clears his throat and says to Crash and the others as he gestures towards Isabella, "Say, Crash, ladies, would you guys mind introducing me to that cute bandicoot friend of yours over there?"

Realizing Hasty wants to introduce himself to Isabella, Crash, Tawna and Liz's faces light up as Tawna happily says to him, "You mean Isabella? Oh, of course we will! You're going to love her!"

As the three of them get up, Liz takes Hasty's hand and says to him, "Come on!"

As they start to walk towards Isabella, Megumi approaches them with a plate of burgers and says, "Hey, guys! I wanted to save some food for Aku Aku, but I can't seem to find him anywhere. Have any of you seen him lately?"

"Hmm. Good question, Megumi." Tawna says. "I have not seen him lately. Have you, Liz?"

"Nope. Not since last week." Liz says to her before turning to Crash and asking, "What about you, Crash?"

Crash shakes his head, every bit as confused as the others.

"Hmm. That truly is bizzare." Tawna says, confused.

As Crash, Tawna, Megumi and Liz stand around scratching their heads with confusion, the sky begins to grow dark, prompting everyone to stop what they were doing and look around with confusion.

"Hey, is it just me, or is it starting to get dark?" asks Von Clutch.

"Yeah! It's only noon!" exclaims Yaya.

Realizing that something bad is about to happen, Isabella pulls Coco and Pura close to her and as they start to head back towards the house, she says to Coco, "Stay close, Coco dear. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Ami looks around before glancing upwards, discovering something that causes her face to light up with fear. She gestures towards everyone else, getting their attention as she asks, "Uh, would it have anything to do with that large ship blocking the sun?"

Everyone looks up and sees a giant space carrier blocking out the sun.

"Oh, this can't be good." Coco says worriedly as she, Pura and Isabella regroup with the others.

Suddenly, a tractor beam is fired from the ship directly at the heroes. Everyone's faces light up with fear.

"Everyone! Get inside, quick!" Tawna yells as the tractor beam gets closer.

Everyone races towards Crash's house in a panic to avoid getting snatched up by the beam. However, before everyone can make it to the house, the tractor beam hits and starts to pull everyone up onto the carrier. Panicked and screaming for their lives, everyone tries to grab onto solid ground to keep from being hoisted up, but with no such luck.

"Chick, help!" exclaims Stew, as he is being lifted up off the ground. Before he can be lifted high enough, though, Chick, who is holding on to a fence post, grabs Stew's hand.

"I got you, Stew!" exclaims Chick.

"Don't let me go!" exclaims Stew, frightened.

As Chick grunts and struggles to keep Stew from being taken away, the fence post comes loose and the tractor beam sucks the two of them up into the carrier with them screaming along the way.

* * *

Meanwhile, over in Papu Papu's village, natives are running about in a panic over the giant carrier in the sky. Papu Papu, asleep in his hut, is rudely awoken from his nap upon overhearing the commotion going on outside.

"What goes on out here?" Papu Papu shouts as he barges out of his hut. "Who interrupt Papu Papu's beauty sleep?"

A native running past him shouts, "RUN!"

Papu Papu, confused, glances upwards and sees the large carrier firing another tractor beam at him. With a look of fright on his face, he is lifted from his village and into the carrier, yelling the whole way as the natives look on in fear. The carrier then takes off up and out of earth's atmosphere at hyperspeed.


	2. Cortex's Plea

Inside the space carrier, Crash, Coco and everyone else are beamed to the tractor beam's control room. As everyone steps out of the tractor beam chamber, Coco looks around the room, which has lots of escape pods, an airlock chute and computer equipment, including a giant video screen. Fearing for the safety of her dimwitted big brother, she starts to look around for him, unaware that he's right behind her with a look of confusion on his face. Suddenly, Papu Papu, who was beamed in separately, lands atop of Von Clutch, squashing him flat like a pancake.

"Huh. Looks like we have an unexpected guest." Pasadena snarks to the others.

"Where is Papu Papu?" he asks, annoyed that his nap was disturbed. "Why are you all here with Papu Papu?"

"Uh, a little help, please?" Von Clutch groans from underneath Papu Papu, prompting him to get up and off of Von Clutch.

Pasadena tends to Von Clutch as Coco continues to look around for Crash. She eventually spots him comforting Tawna, who likewise is comforting the Nitro Squad.

"Crash? Crash!" she calls out as she approaches him and gives him a hug. "There you are! Are you okay, big brother!"

Crash agrees in gibberish as everyone looks around.

"Where are we?" Tawna asks, confused.

Papu Papu glances out a nearby window next to the escape pods and discovers they're in outer space. He turns to the group and says, "Well, we not on sandy beach no more and Papu Papu not having his rest!"

Suddenly, everyone hears faint explosions. They all race to the same window Papu Papu was looking out of to discover that earth is being blown up by hundreds of nuclear weapons. Everyone reacts in absolute horror as Coco tearfully cries, "Our home! It's gone!"

As everyone watches the blast waves spread across the planet, Isabella tearfully says, "Everyone and everything we ever cared about... all gone."

"No more singing birds..." Megumi cries as she and Liz comfort each other.

"No more cute and cuddly critters..." Yaya sobs as Isabella comforts her and Coco.

"I mean, this... this is terrible." Crunch groans in sadness as he comforts Ami.

"Who in their right mind would do something like this, anyway?" Tawna angrily cries.

Suddenly, a voice calls out, "Yes, it's a real shame, isn't it?" getting their attention.

Everyone turns to see Dr. Neo Cortex emerging from the shadows with his minions (N. Gin, Tiny Tiger, Dingodile, Ripper Roo, the Komodo Bros., N. Trance, Nina Cortex, Koala Kong and Rilla Roo, minus N. Tropy, N. Brio & Pinstripe) following him into the room.

"Seeing everyone and everything you love and cherish being burnt to a crisp and then flying apart like leaves?" Cortex asks as he approaches the heroes. "Really tugs at the ol' heartstrings, don't it?"

"You!" shouts Tawna as she, Crash, Coco, Papu Papu, Fake Crash, Crunch, Isabella, Ami, Liz, Pasadena and Yaya glare at Cortex and his minions.

"What do you want, Cortex?" Coco angrily asks as she gets in front of Crash and Tawna.

"Yeah! What's the big idea?" Yaya shouts, waving her fist around.

"Hello, everyone!" Megumi gleefully says as she waves to the crowd.

"Hi, cute bandicoot!" Tiny Tiger replies with the same amount of glee as Megumi.

The heroes turn to Megumi, unamused, prompting her to ask, "What?" Likewise, Cortex and his minions turn to Tiny, unamused with his happiness, prompting Tiny to tell them, "Tiny can't help it. Blue-haired bandicoot is cute like cinnamon roll!"

"Anyways, as we were saying..." Coco says as she turns back to Cortex. "Why did you have to go and drop a nuke on the entire planet, Cortex?"

Crash agrees in gibberish with Crunch, Tawna and Ami nodding their heads in unison, agreeing with Crash and Coco.

"What?!" Cortex asks, surprised and slightly insulted. "You think _I_ did that?"

"Yeah! And besides, if it was him, he would already be gloating to your faces about it!" Dingodile says, vouching for the doctor.

"Yes, and we'd only use our weapons to bring delicious doom to you all, not to kill all of mankind!" N. Gin says whilst laughing maniacally.

"And my uncle only cares about wanting to enslave all of mankind, anyway!" says Nina Cortex, Cortex's niece.

"Thank you, my beloved niece." Cortex says to Nina as he pats her on the back, before turning back to Crash and the others. "Look, the bottom line here is, I need your help!"

"You?" Coco laughs. "Needing our help?"

Crash, Papu Papu, Fake Crash, Crunch, Tawna, Isabella, Ami, Liz, Pasadena and Yaya all laugh in unison with Coco as she continues, "Oh, man! That's a good one! _**NO.**_"

"No, I'm being serious!" Cortex pleads to the heroes. "We need to figure out who was responsible for blowing up the earth!"

"You got some nerve there, Cortex!" Pasadena growls as she storms up to him, grabbing him by the arm and raising him up to her eye level. "We all know it was you who blew up the earth!"

Crash, Coco, Papu Papu, Fake Crash, Crunch, Tawna, Isabella, Ami, Liz and Yaya respond in agreement while Polar, Pura, Megumi, Baby T., Baby Crash, Baby Coco, Von Clutch, King Chicken, Hasty, Chick, Stew and Cortex's minions all start to look concerned that something bad is about to happen.

"It's bad enough y'all tried to take over Ol' Von Clutch's amusement park for your own selfish reasons!" Pasadena continues as she lets go of his arm, dropping Cortex, who scurries back to his minions' side in fear.

"Look! I'm telling you all that I'm innocent!" Cortex begs, starting to get desperate. "Why won't you believe me?"

"Because you're the villain, and the villain always gets what's coming to them!" Ami says as she, Crash, Coco, Papu Papu, Fake Crash, Crunch, Tawna, Isabella, Liz, Pasadena, and Yaya gang up and start to approach Cortex, who slowly starts to back away in fear.

"But he'ssss not the villain thisssss time!" Komodo Joe says as he and his brother Moe block their path to try and reason with them.

"He ssssseriously wantssss your help!" Komodo Moe tells them.

"Yes!" Cortex desperately exclaims. "Listen to them!"

"Baloney!" Crunch snaps as he and Ami violently push the Komodo brothers aside and start to quickly approach Cortex, who is trembling with absolute fear.

"We've had it with your lies, Cortex!" Tawna roars as they get closer to Cortex.

"You interrupt Papu Papu's beauty sleep!" Papu Papu shouts as he cracks his knuckles.

"Let's get him!" Coco yells as she, Crash, Papu Papu, Fake Crash, Tawna, Isabella, Ami, Liz, Pasadena, and Yaya all pounce on Cortex, while Polar, Pura, Megumi, Baby T., Baby Crash, Baby Coco, Von Clutch, King Chicken, Hasty, Chick and Stew watch from the sidelines as Cortex cries out for help to his minions.

"Oh, dear." Megumi says, concerned.

"Good day for a swell battle, eh, Stew?" Chick asks, gleefully.

"Well, Chick, looks like Cortex is about to get... scrambled!" Stew happily exclaims.

Von Clutch groans, "Really, guys?"

By this point, Cortex has been tied up and unable to move as everyone grabs hold of him and hoists him up. Cortex's minions, wanting to help him, all cower in fear, fearing that the heroes will do the same to them what they did to Cortex.

"Launch him out of the airlock!" Ami shouts as she gestures towards the airlock chute.

Everyone cheers in agreement as they storm towards the airlock with Cortex in tow.

"Good thinking, Ami!" Crunch replies.

"No! Stop! Don't do this!" Cortex exclaims as they bring him closer to the airlock. "You're hurting an innocent man, I tell you! Unhand me this instant! Help!"

As Coco begins to activate the airlock, Tiny fearfully says to Cortex's minions, "Tiny can't bear to watch! Can someone cover Tiny's eyes?"

Suddenly, before they can launch Cortex out of the airlock, a voice cries out, "No! Wait!"

Everyone stops and turns around to the opposite side of the room.


	3. Oxide's Revelation

From the shadows emerges Nitros Oxide, the alien who attempted to turn earth into a concrete parking lot a while back, along with his two minions, Zam and Zem, and the Nitro Kart bosses (Krunk, Nash and the Norms, minus Geary and Real Velo), who all approach everyone slowly, wanting to say something, but also concerned for what the heroes will do to them, given the threats they made to them through a while back.

"You guys need to let him go. He's not lying." Oxide says to everyone.

"Oxide?! You're here, too?" exclaims Coco, surprised.

"Good!" exclaims Ami. "Now we have two villains to launch out of the airlock!"

As Crash, Coco, Papu Papu, Fake Crash, Crunch, Tawna, Isabella, Megumi, Ami, Liz, Pasadena and Yaya approach Oxide, with Cortex still in tow, Oxide raises his hand and says, "No, stop. I'm being serious, and so is Cortex."

"Not buying it." Liz says with disbelief.

"Will you earthlings please put the doctor down and listen to us for one minute?" shouts Krunk, annoyed with Liz's disbelief.

"Krunk, please. Calm down." Oxide says as he calms Krunk. "But he's right. Please. Put the doctor down and let me speak. For five minutes."

The heroes all turn to one another, thinking for a minute, before Ami sighs in frustration and says, "Fine. Guys, let him go."

Everyone drops Cortex to the ground as Ami approaches Oxide and looks him squarely in the eyes.

"Now, what is it you want, Oxide?" she says sternly.

"I know who's responsible for blowing up your planet." Oxide replies.

Oxide snaps his fingers as the Norms hand him a tape.

"Just let me play this video, and all your questions will be answered." Oxide says to her.

* * *

Cortex leads Oxide to a giant video screen, where Oxide approaches the control panel and sticks the tape into the panel, and presses the play button to start playback.

"Okay, assuming that Zem hasn't taped over the footage with his questionable desires, we should see exactly what happened before your planet was fried." Oxide says as everyone gathers around the video screen and starts to watch as the playback commences.

In the video feed, we see N. Tropy and N. Brio aboard the abandoned Cortex Vortex trying to reason with a masked intruder, who is seen starting up a computer system and approaching a nearby control panel.

"What in the world?" Coco asks herself, confused.

In the video, N. Tropy shouts, _"Stop! Intruder! You are in a restricted area!"_

"_G-g-g-g-get away from there! That control panel launches all of our nuclear weapons!_" N. Brio says in the video.

"_Especially when you have them all aimed towards earth!_" N. Tropy says in the video.

As the video continues to play, Cortex turns to everyone and explains, "You see, when Oxide discovered this with one of his surveillance drones, he immediately sent the footage to me via a live stream."

Confused, Pasadena turns to Oxide and asks him, "Hold on a second. So you've been using these here drones to spy on us this whole time, alien?"

"Y-y-yes..." Oxide nervously replies.

Ami turns to Oxide and says, "I swear, if you've been using these drones to spy on me and the ladies during our private time..."

"Not the time, Ami. Not the time." Crunch says to Ami.

"Wait a minute, Cortex." Coco says with confusion. "If Oxide was live streaming this feed to you, then you should have seen who blew up the earth!"

"Yes, true." Cortex tells her. "But I had to leave before the video was over to come save all of you, so I haven't seen all of it yet."

"Keep watching! Here it comes!" Oxide says as everyone resumes watching.

"_No! You f-f-f-fool! Don't push that b-b-b-button!_" N. Brio says in the video.

"_You do realize that you're targeting our home, don't you?_" N. Tropy asks in the video. "_What has humanity ever done to you that caused you do some so reckless?_"

Suddenly, a dark figure approaches them from behind, takes N. Tropy's staff and knocks them out with it. The figure emerges from the shadows, revealing it to be Geary, the neat freak robot and champion of the robotic planet of Teknee.

"_There! No more having to worry about them telling us what to do!_" Geary says in the video. "_Let 'er rip, buddy!_"

As the masked intruder takes off his mask, everyone reacts in horror as to who the masked figure really is: Pinstripe, Cortex's tommy gun-totting gangster bodyguard who has the hots for Tawna, determined to make her his one and only.

"_Perfect._" Pinstripe says in the video with a sinister grin on his face.

He presses a button on the control console, launching all of the nukes towards earth. The video feed cuts off as the nukes strike earth. Everyone stands around with shocked looks on their faces.

"Oh, good lord." Cortex mutters to himself, shocked and befuddled.

"That rat!" Tawna angrily shouts. "How could he do this to billions of innocent people?!"

"So this means... Cortex really was telling the truth all along." Coco says, feeling bad for not believing Cortex earlier.

"Exactly!" exclaims Cortex. "That's what I've been trying to tell you all from the beginning!"

"Well... looks like we owe you an apology, Cortex." Pasadena says to Cortex.

Crash nods in agreement, and everyone turns to Cortex, willing to listen this time.

"So, Cortex. What's your plan of action?" Coco asks him.

"Well, Coco, dear. There's only one thing for us to do." Cortex says to her before addressing everyone else in the room. "We all have to put aside our differences and work together, as a team!"

Everyone reacts with surprise at Cortex's words.

"Wait a second. You seriously want us to work with your minions who have tried to kill us on multiple occasions?" Tawna asks with disbelief. "You're joking, right?"

"No, I'm dead serious." says Cortex. "Look, if we're going to stop Pinstripe and that robot from doing anymore damage, we all have to learn to cooperate with one another."

"Yes, lisssssten to the doctor." Komodo Joe says to everyone. "He knowssss what he's talking about."

"So, what do you say?" Cortex asks everyone. "Are we in this together or not?"

The heroes hesitate to answer Cortex, still surprised with his suggestion of teaming up with their enemies. Coco and Tawna both turn to Crash, with Coco asking, "Well, Crash, what do you think? Should we do this?"

Knowing that they'll need to stop Pinstripe before he can do any harm to Tawna, Crash says something to Coco and Tawna through incomprehensible gibberish.

"Really?" Tawna asks him. "You think we should?"

Crash takes Tawna's hand and nods.

Tawna smiles and says to him, "Okay, Crash. If you say we should, then who am I to disagree with you?" She then turns to Cortex speaks up. "All right, Cortex. Crash has made the decision for all of us. We're in! Let's do it!"

Everyone cheers in agreement as the heroes and villains approach one another and start to shake hands, knowing that they will have to learn to cooperate with each other.

"Excellent! To the control room, everyone!" Cortex says as he motions everyone to follow him. "Pinstripe and Geary should be landing on earth when the smoke settles. Once they do, we'll locate them on the carrier's scanner and bring the fight to them!"

"Ooh, this is going to be so much fun!" exclaims Megumi as she happily skips around. "We're going on an adventure!"

"Calm yourself, Megumi." Ami says as she calms Megumi down. "We can't go to earth just yet. We need to let Cortex do his thing before we can take action."

"Oh. How long will that take?" Megumi asks her.

"Who knows, Megumi?" Ami says as they all enter the control room. "Who knows?"

The door closes behind them.


	4. Crash Landing

One month has passed since earth was nuked, and Cortex's carrier still drifts slowly above earth's atmosphere. Earth now looks more like a massive piece of charcoal. On board the carrier, inside the main control room, everyone is sitting around finding various things to do to kill time, all with dead, bored looks on their faces. Meanwhile, Cortex sits at a computer, aimlessly typing on the keyboard running tests to locate Pinstripe and Geary's exact whereabouts, all of which come up negative.

Suddenly, Oxide, who is tired of sitting around doing nothing, bangs his fists on a countertop, and as he storms up to Cortex, shouts, "I can't take this anymore! It's been a whole month, and we're all just sitting here floating through space in this giant heap of scrap metal with no trace of Brio or N. Tropy!" He turns to Cortex and continues yelling. "What exactly do you plan on doing now, Cortex?!"

Cortex, stunned from Oxide shouting at him, quietly mutters, "I... I don't know."

Upon hearing this, everyone gets up and approaches Cortex.

"What do you mean?" N. Gin asks, surprised. "You're Dr. Neo Periwinkle Cortex! You've come up with dozens of plans to wipe out Crash and his friends!"

"Yeah" exclaims N. Trance. "If you can do that, then surely you can think of some way to find our friends!"

Cortes sighs dejectedly and as he glances at his computer screen, says, "Well, I've tried to do a perimeter scan at least a hundred thousand times over the past month, but nothing's coming up." He turns to everyone and continues to speak. "It's like the nuke screwed around with the earth's gravitational field or something."

"How is that even possible, Cortex?" asks Megumi, curiously.

"I don't know!" Cortex shouts in frustration. "If anyone knows anything about rocket science, it's N. Gin!"

"Sorry, Cortex, but even I'm stumped about that." N. Gin regretfully tells him. "Wish I could help, but I can't"

Coco glances out the window as they speak and suddenly reacts with shock at something she sees outside. She turns to everyone and asks, "Uh, guys?"

Multiple characters ask, "What?"

"Should we be worried about that?" Coco says as she gestures outside.

Everyone looks outside and sees an incoming missile targeted towards the cruiser. It strikes one of the engine turbines, knocking it out. Everyone, feeling the rumbling from the missile impact, reacts with fear.

"We've been hit!" Von Clutch shouts in fear. "We're going down!"

"We're all going to die!" Stew screams as he shakes Chick rapidly.

"Calm down, everyone!" Cortex shouts, reassuredly. "That missile only took out one engine. As long as we have the other three still up and running, we should be just—"

Before Cortex can finish speaking, he reacts with shock at seeing four more missiles heading towards them. Three of them knock out the remaining engines and the last one knocks out the power supply.

As the entire control room goes black and an emergency alarm sounds, Cortex whimpers, "Mommy..."

After a brief moment, the ship rapidly starts to plummet towards earth.

Stew clears his throat and says, "Like I was saying... WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"

Everyone starts screaming as the ship continues to plummet.

"What are we going to do, Cortex?!" Coco screams in a panic.

"Okay, let me think here." Cortex says as he frantically looks around before spotting the main door to the control room, which is wide open. "Ooh! I got it!" He turns to Tiny and Dingodile and says, "Tiny! Dingodile! Get anyone who's not the original eight racers and my niece down to the passenger compartment! They'll be safe there!"

"Got it!" Tiny exclaims as he and Dingodile race to the open door leading out of the control room.

"Quickly, mates! Let's move!" Dingodile shouts as he moves everyone out of the control room one by one. Tiny sees that Tawna and Isabella are by Crash and Coco's sides, refusing to budge.

"Lady bandicoots, come on!" Tiny shouts as he motions them to go through the door. "Tiny must get you to safety!"

"No!" Tawna shouts as she grabs Crash tightly. "I'm not leaving you, Crash!"

"And I'm staying here by Coco's side!" Isabella yells as she wraps her arms around Coco.

"No!" Cortex shouts to the two of them. "You don't have a choice! It's not safe up here! Now go!"

Tiny approaches Tawna and Isabella, picks them up and starts taking them to the door, with the two of them grunting and struggling to get free the whole time.

"Tiny sorry that he has to do this." he sadly tells the pair before throwing them through the door to the tractor beam control room with the other racers.

"Please forgive us." Dingodile sadly tells them as he prepares to close the door.

* * *

"No! Stop!" Isabella yells as she races to the door. Unfortunately, by the time she gets up to run, it's too late. Dingodile has closed and barricaded the door shut.

"Coco!" Isabella cries out.

"Crash!" Tawna screams in fear.

"There's no time!" Ami says as she grabs their hands and drags them to a nearby stairwell leading downstairs to the passenger compartment. "Come on, girls!"

* * *

Back in the control room, Cortex turns to Nina and says, "Nina! Coco! N. Gin! See if you three can get the emergency backup power up and running!"

"Yes, sir, uncle!" Nina exclaims as the three of them attempt to boot up the computers they're sitting at.

"And you! Crash!" Cortex shouts as he gestures to Polar and Pura, who are trembling with fear. "Protect those two animal friends of yours!"

Crash races over to Polar and Pura and grabs hold of them while Cortex continues to struggle with the controls.

* * *

Down in the passenger compartment, everyone straps themselves in for their own safety.

As Papu Papu closes the door shut and takes his seat, Chick addresses the group, "In case of an emergency, your seat cushions can be used to prevent your rib cages from being smashed to pieces."

Stew adds, "Complimentary peanuts, anyone?"

Ami groans and says to the two of them, "Really, guys?"

* * *

Back in the control room, chaos continues to ensue as the carrier re-enters earth's atmosphere.

Coco calls out, "No good, Cortex! Everything's completely fried!"

Cortex panicked, says, "We have no choice then." He turns to the group and shouts, "Everyone! Grab onto something and hold on tight!"

Everyone scrambles to find something large and heavy to hold on to as Cortex grabs hold of the steering wheel.

"Prepare for a really rough landing!" he shouts as the carrier makes impact with the earth's surface, skidding across the dunes of a desert before crashing into a large metal pipe.

The force of the crash throws the eight racers and Nina through the windshield of the control room and into the air. As Cortex, N. Gin, Tiny and Dingodile pass through the windshield, small pieces of flesh are ripped from their bodies by the glass and metal, and fall to the ground below as they all fall towards an abandoned nuclear power plant. They all crash through the roof of the plant and land into a vat of toxic slime.

"Ew!" exclaims Dingodile. "Someone get this toxic goop off of me!"

"This stuff's so thick and sticky, I can barely move!" Cortex groans.

"Now I know where that Crash look-alike got his Halloween skin idea from..." grumbles Nina.

"It's okay, guys." Coco reassures them. "We just have to make it to the decontamination chamber here in the plant."

"What makes you think they even have one in this place?" Cortex asks her.

"Well, if there's radioactivity, there's bound to be at least one decontamination chamber on the premises." Coco replies. "And besides, as long as we don't come into contact with anything flammable, we should be okay."

Suddenly, a faint whistling sound is heard as everyone looks up to see Dingodile's flamethrower pack, which was separated from him when they were launched out of the carrier, heading right for them and into the vat of toxic slime.

"Oh, derryberries..." Coco whimpers.

From the other racer's view, a massive green-tinted explosion erupts from the plant as they all watch in horror. Tawna and Isabella scream Crash and Coco's names at the top of their lungs as a vacuum nozzle below them sucks up the pieces of flesh from Cortex, N. Gin, Tiny and Dingodile without anyone noticing.

* * *

The nozzle returns to a massive carrier, even larger than Cortex's. Once it retracts inside, it deposits the piece of flesh next to the pilot, Geary, who looks through a pair of binoculars and is pleased with the explosion that just occurred. He sinisterly chuckles to himself and says, "Boom bang, baby. Boom. Bang."

He then picks up a nearby phone and dials a number.

"Milord, come in!" Geary says into the phone. "Can you hear me?"

On the other end, a voice replies, _"Yes, what is it, Geary?"_

"I have done exactly what you told me to do. I blasted those heroes out of the sky, and I've acquired the materials needed for our little experiment." Geary tells the mysterious voice.

_"Excellent work, Geary!"_ the voice exclaims. _"Bring the materials back here so we can get started right away!"_

"Yes sir, your highness!" Geary says as he presses some buttons on the control panel. "I'll send the troops out to capture these do-gooders! Once they emerge from where they're hiding, they're as good as ours! They're not messing up our plans this time!"

A smaller carrier is then dispatched from the larger carrier, which slowly approaches Cortex's carrier while Geary's carrier takes off northbound at hyperspeed.


	5. The Survivors

On the crashed carrier, Oxide opens the cargo bay doors. He steps out, looks around to see if they were spotted and once the coast is clear, he motions for everyone to disembark.

"Is everyone okay?" he asks as the racers disembark from the carrier.

"Boy, that was a nasty looking explosion." Crunch says, looking out at the green smoke cloud emerging from the nuclear power plant in from of them.

"Yeah." Nash quips to Crunch. "Here's hoping they were able to survive something like that."

As the last of the racers disembark from the carrier, Chick and Stew walk past the others and look out at the power plant, unaware that everyone is reacting unfavorably to their new appearance: their feathers have been singed off and they have been cooked alive, looking more like a walking, talking rotisserie chicken dinner.

"Well, what can you say about this whole mess here, Stew?" Chick asks, unaware that Stew is freaking out over how the two of them look.

Confused that he hasn't gotten an answer out of Stew yet, Chick turns to him and, before he can even say anything to him, freaks when he sees Stew's fried appearance, before glancing at his own fried hand and freaking out. After a beat, the two of them glance at each other and run around the dunes screaming like maniacs before they eventually run into each other and collapse on the ground. Panicked, Chick asks, "How could this have happened to us, Stew?!"

As Koala Kong approaches the two and picks them up off the ground, Hasty quips, "Well, these things tend to happen when you sit right next to an active furnace, guys."

"Whose idea was it to put an active furnace in the passenger compartment anyway?" Stew panics before remembering who the carrier belongs to. "...Oh. Right." Stew chuckles nervously.

Directing her attention away from the pair, Megumi looks around before turning to Liz and asking, "Where are we?"

Liz, looking out and seeing nothing but the nuclear power plant, along with miles and miles of desert dunes, replies, "Well, I can tell you this: it ain't Palm Springs."

Suddenly, Tawna and Isabella barge past them in a panic, prompting Liz to shout, "Oi! Watch yourself!"

"Crash?! Where are you?!" Tawna cries out, on the verge of tears. She looks out and sees green smoke pouring out of the plant, and races over to it, screaming Crash's name.

"I'm coming, Coco!" Isabella screams as she follows Tawna close behind.

"Girls, wait!" Ami shouts in a panic as the other racers watch in fear. "Don't be fools! You'll expose yourself to radiation!"

Ami, seeing that the two of them are not listening, groans and starts running after them, with everyone else following close behind.

* * *

Tawna kicks the door to the plant open and runs inside, along with Isabella. The two of them frantically look around for any sign of the OG eight racers and Nina. Ami and the other racers catch up with them. "Girls!" Ami scolds as she approaches Tawna and Isabella, "What were you thinking?"

"Yeah!" Liz exclaims. "You could've blown our cover out there! And now you're exposing us all to serious radiation!"

"I'm sorry!" Tawna panics, breathing shakily. "I just don't want anything to happen to dear, sweet Crash!"

Suddenly, the sound of metal collapsing is heard, getting everyone's attention as they look over and see a group of figures approaching them from the smoke. They start to back away in fear before one figure spots Tawna and starts to advance on her.

Tawna whimpers, grabbing a nearby shovel to defend herself with, before the figure steps out from the smoke, revealing it to be Crash, whose pants are charred and now sports a slick red mohawk, bright orange fur and tiger stripes as a result from the slime explosion.

Tawna, relieved, drops the shovel, and runs up to Crash, happily crying, "Crash! Thank goodness you're okay! And..." She then glances up at Crash's hair. "Whoa. You've done something with your hair, baby. Me likey!"

"Glad you like his hair." Nina snarks as she, Polar and Tiny emerge from the smoke with similar looking mohawks and charred clothes. "Pink just doesn't suit me in the slightest."

Weak coughing is heard and everyone looks and sees Cortex emerging from the smoke. He has one hand up on his eye, as it was ruptured from the explosion, and one hand on his throat and can barely speak.

"Help... me..." Cortex wheezes. "Can't... breathe... _(cough!)_ Esophagus... damaged... from... explosion... _(cough!)_"

N. Gin follows Cortex from out of the smoke, his faceplate missing. Dingodile stands in the smoke, but he refuses to come out.

"Help! Has anyone seen my faceplate around here?" N. Gin shouts before gesturing to Dingodile. "And can someone get Dingodile a new jaw?"

"Not to worry, you guys." Tawna says as she approaches Cortex. "We'll have Coco take care of you all pronto!"

"You'd... _(cough!)_ do... that... for... _(cough!)_ us...?" Cortex wheezes.

"Of course! We're a team now, and no one's dying on my watch!" Tawna replies.

"Stay here, everyone." Isabella says as she heads in the direction of the toxic slime vat. "I'll find Coco and get her here ASAP! Be right back!"

As she continues to look around, she calls out, "Coco? Where are you? We need your help over here!"

Suddenly, she hears faint sobbing in the distance. "...Coco?" she wonders to herself.

Seeing the green smoke pouring from the vat, she races over to it and sees Coco, with charred clothes and hair that is now lavender with streaks of pale aqua and two different eye colors as opposed to her normal green eyes, sobbing in the middle of the vat.

"Coco! There you are!" she says as she races to Coco's side. "Coco, dear, what's wrong—"

Suddenly, she gasps in horror at what Coco was sobbing about: Pura, whose fur has been mostly singed off, his flesh suffering severe burns, and can barely breathe. "Pura?" Isabella fearfully says.

Everyone else catches up with Isabella and reacts with the same fear she did.

As everyone sadly gathers around Coco, Pura and Isabella, Coco sobs, "Please, Pura. Don't die on me."

The other racers start to tear up as Crash emerges from the crowd and slowly approaches Coco with a solemn look on his face.

Pura, who can barely keep his eyes open, looks up at Coco, and licks her cheek one last time. "Please. No." Coco sobs.

Then, Pura's eyes close as his breathing comes to a complete stop. Pura has died. Everyone gasps in horror as Nina gasps, "Oh, no."

Coco starts breathing shakily as Crash sits down beside her. She turns to Crash and tearfully asks, "Crash? _(sniff!)_ Is he...?"

Crash grabs Pura's paw and checks for a pulse. He looks at Coco solemnly, closes his eyes and hangs his head down, confirming Pura's death.

Coco gasps in fear and, already on the verge of tears, collapses into ballistic crying as she cries, "No! Don't go, Pura! I need you here with me! PLEASE! DON'T DIE, PURA! _**PLEASE DON'T DIE!**_"

"Coco!" Isabella shouts, getting Coco's attention. "It's okay. He's gone to a better place. He won't have to suffer in this post-apocalyptic wasteland anymore." Isabella reaches out to touch Coco, but, fearful of what would happen if she came into contact with her new form, hesitates and retracts her hand and joins Coco and Crash in silent crying. All the other racers join in on their crying as light from a hole in the ceiling shines down on Pura's lifeless corpse. Even Cortex, who could care less about the death of an innocent animal, sheds a tear for Pura and starts to bawl wheezily, prompting Nina and N. Gin to give him a comforting hug as they continue to silently sob for Pura.

Moments later, Coco gets up, and as she continues to look at Pura's lifeless corpse, her ugly crying turns into silent, seething rage. "Th... tha... that..." she angrily whimpers underneath her breath. Suddenly, she explodes into a pure unstoppable rage, screaming, "That BLASTED _**RAT!**_ I'M GOING TO _**KILL **_HIM FOR WHAT HE HAS DONE TO PURA!" Coco shoves racers out of her way, yelling "_GET OUT OF MY WAY!_" as she heads towards the exit while the racers look on with fear in their eyes.

Ami charges up to her and grabs her by the arm, fearfully telling her, "Coco, wait! You can _not_ go out there by yourself! It's too dangerous!"

"**_SO?!_**" Coco snaps back as she pulls her arm away from Ami as the other racers catch up with them. "I can and I _**WILL **_make this journey myself! I'm going to find that rat _**AND **_that robot _**and tear them limb from limb!**_"

Megumi approaches Coco and calls out, "Coco, wait!" before she can leave the building.

Coco spins around and prepares to start screaming some more, only to stop herself when she sees Megumi standing in front of her. Knowing that she could never in her life scream at someone as kind and innocent as Megumi, Coco collapses into a sobbing heap as Megumi approaches her, sits down next to her and rests her hand on her shoulder.

"There, there, Coco. It's all right." she reassures Coco. "Just calm down. Me and Isabella are right here by your side."

"Just take your time and breathe, Coco." Isabella says as she approaches the pair. She bends down, lifts Coco's chin up and says to her, "Hey. You're okay. And Pura's okay, too."

"But... Pura's dead!" Coco sobs.

"Or is he?" Isabella replies with determination and hope. "Tell her, Megumi!"

Megumi taps Coco on the shoulder, getting her attention as she holds up some kind of scanner and tells her, "Coco, I found this old scanner lying nearby, and when I got close to Pura, you will never guess what happened?"

Coco wipes the tears away from her eyes and asks, "What? What happened?"

"Well, this scanner actually detected signs of brain activity inside Pura!" Megumi exclaims with glee.

Coco gasps in surprise and asks, "You mean...?"

Megumi nods in conformation. "Yes, we can still save Pura, but we have to hurry." she says to Coco.

Coco squeals with delight and hugs both Megumi and Isabella in happiness as Tiny brings the lifeless corpse of Pura to them.

As Isabella and Megumi help Coco up, Isabella turns to the other racers and asks, "Everyone! Does anyone have anything we can put Pura's brain in?"

Everyone looks around before Crunch shouts, "Hey!"

Everyone turns and sees that he and Koala Kong have found an old robotic tiger body lying in a pile of rubble. "What if we used this old robotic tiger body?"

"Perfect!" exclaims Isabella as Crunch and Koala Kong bring the robotic tiger body to them. "But now the only question is, who's going to perform the operation?"

"Good question there, Issy." Megumi tells Isabella. "After all, the best thing would be to have someone with a PhD from medical school doing the operation. Don't want to have anyone with no experience messing up the operation."

"Well, I don't know about who can do the surgery, but I can for sure get that robotic tiger up and running again!" N. Trance exclaims with a grin. "Since I'm a cybernetic egg from another dimension, I know a thing or two about robotics."

He approaches Cortex and N. Gin and continues, "And I'll have you two fixed up in no time, along with Dingodile! Wherever he is."

As Ami, having noticed N. Trance, approaches Tawna and whispers something to her, Oxide exclaims, "Quickly! We haven't a moment to lose! The clock is ticking fast and we have to save this poor innocent animal from complete and total death!"

N. Gin clears his throat, getting Oxide's attention.

"Oh, yeah. And we'll tend to the other three in need as well." he continues.

"N. Trance!" Tawna calls out, getting his attention. "Ami here is telling me that you were the last one in here, so you haven't been exposed to much radiation, have you?"

"No, actually." N. Trance replies. "In fact, I came in just as Megumi was telling Coco about how they can save Pura."

"Perfect!" Tawna exclaims as she gestures towards the decontamination chamber. "We found the decontamination chamber and a medical room close by, so while we're in the decontamination chamber, you can head to the medical room right here and perform Pura's surgery while we get decontaminated, because everyone in this room has been exposed to so much radiation!"

"If you say so." N. Trance says as Tawna leads him to the medical room. Tiny places Pura's body and the robotic tiger body on a trolley, which N. Trance pushes into the medical room. Tawna closes the door behind him.

"Hey! What are we standing around here for?" Ami says as she heads for the decontamination chamber while she takes off her green racing dress and tosses it aside, landing right in Coco's face. "Let's get this radiation out of our systems!"

As everyone awkwardly follows Ami into the decontamination chamber, Coco notices the rest of Ami's clothes lying on the ground. As she gathers them up, she mumbles to herself, "Should've waited until we got _into_ the chamber before getting naked, but I digress..."


	6. Spectacular Superpowers!

Time passes as everyone gets finished with the decontamination process, getting dressed up in new clothes lying around the plant and emerging from the chamber into the medical waiting room, where Coco, dressed in her Rustland skin attire, worriedly sits, concerned for Pura as Crash, dressed in his Rustland skin attire, and Isabella, dressed in a navy blue sports bra and brown jeans with boots, pat her on the back.

Suddenly, Cortex and N. Gin barge out of the operating room. Cortex now has a mechanical eye and a breathing apparatus and is dressed in an orange hazmat suit with a helmet resembling those from the war.

He inhales deeply and exclaims, "I can breathe again! It's a miracle!"

N. Gin follows behind with a new makeshift faceplate. His missile is replaced with an apparatus resembling a motor engine.

"Watch out, mates!" Dingodile calls out from inside the operating room. "I'm comin' out!" He emerges from the operating room as everyone reacts with shock and surprise at what Dingodile has transformed into: he has further mutated into a crocodile form, he has a metal connector on his spinal column, and his lower jaw has been replaced with a metal one.

Confused with everyone's reactions, Dingodile asks, "What? Is there something in my teeth?"

"Well, what do you all think?" Cortex asks as he approaches the racers.

"Well... I mean, you've looked worse..." Coco says to him, N. Gin and Dingodile. "But what about Pura?"

Suddenly, N. Trance emerges from the operating room and says to Coco, "Oh, Coco. There's a certain special someone here who wants to see you."

He steps aside to reveal Pura, who has had his brain placed inside the robotic tiger body that Crunch and Koala Kong had found earlier. Coco gasps in delight and runs up to Pura, saying, "Pura! Is it really you?"

The robotic Pura playfully licks Coco on the cheek. Coco squeals and gives Pura the biggest hug.

"Oh, Pura! I thought after that toxic explosion, I had lost you for good!" she happily cries as everyone watches contently. "I'm so glad you're okay!"

As Coco sheds tears of joy, Megumi, dressed in a tank top and bulletproof vest with her normal pants, looks at her scanner, which is going haywire.

"Wow!" she exclaims. "You all are not going to believe this!"

"What?" Coco asks. "What is it, Megumi?"

"Yeah, tell us!" exclaims Cortex.

Megumi approaches the OG 8 racers and Nina and tells them, "Well, according to this scanner, you all have gained superpowers as a result from that massive radiation explosion!"

Megumi goes to each individual racer and tells them their powers.

"Cortex, you have the ability to summon supernatural dark matter which you can unleash upon your worst enemies!"

"Really?" Cortex says. "Well, I guess it's time for a little... black magic."

"Tiny, your claws were already razor-sharp before, but now, they've become so sharp that you can slice any foe to pieces in seconds!"

"Tiny slice through puny monsters in Rustland!" he exclaims as he brandishes his claws and lets out a roar.

"Dingodile, your mutated crocodile exterior can withstand any flame! You can walk through fire! And that connector on your spine can adapt to any weapon of your choice!"

"Wow, you don't say!" Dingodile says as he picks up a lava gun attached to a gasoline tank. "I'm ready to fry anyone who gets in my way!"

"N. Gin, that apparatus in the new faceplate N. Trance installed for you can really fry your foes if you give it enough power!"

"Ooh, let's flame on!" N. Gin exclaims.

"Polar, you can curl up like an armadillo and make circles around your enemies to protect us!"

Polar happily barks and licks Megumi's face. Megumi giggles before moving on.

"Nina, if you spin your arms around on the ground really fast, you can make sparks fly to blind our foes and possibly electrocute them to death!"

"Oh, man!" Nina exclaims. "Sparks are going to fly tonight, baby!"

"Coco, you have been gifted with super speed! Now you can outrun your foes in the blink of an eye!"

"Wow, really?" Coco exclaims. "Well, I'm really going to make circles around my foes!"

"And we all know that Pura's brain has been placed in the body of this armored robotic tiger."

Pura lets out a metallic roar.

"Well, I think it's safe to say that you guys are ready for the Rustlands." Megumi finishes up.

"Sweet!" Nina exclaims as she holds her hand up. "Gimme five!"

"Oh, yeah!" exclaims Ami, dressed in jean shorts and a tank top ripped off at her belly, as she returns her high five. "That's what I'm talking a—"

The second Ami's hand comes into contact with Nina's super-powered hand, a small explosion sends her flying across the room, coming into contact with Isabella and Liz, dressed in a neon green tank top with purple jean shorts.

"Oooh. That's gotta hurt." Pasadena mutters, dressed in her Embiginator skin from Tag Team Racing. "Are y'all okay over there?"

The three of them get up from off the floor and everyone is amazed with what they see: their hairstyles have been completely redone and their hair is now its own unique color. Ami's green hair now has neon yellow streaks running through it. Liz's hair is now neon pink with neon green streaks, and Isabella's hair is now yellow-orange with neon red streaks.

"Whoa." Ami says as the three of them look into a nearby mirror, noticing their new hairdos. "Feels like we've traveled back to the 1980's, right, girls?"

"Like I said, Nina can electrocute her foes." Megumi quips, backing up her statement about Nina's powers.

"Wait, Megumi." Coco says as she taps Megumi on the shoulder, getting her attention. "What about Crash? Doesn't he have any superpowers?"

Megumi points her scanner at Crash, looks at it, and inhales sharply as she reluctantly tells Coco, "Well... I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but it looks like Crash did not get any sort of powers from that explosion."

Crash sulks upon hearing this news. Coco then rests her hand on his back as she reassures him, "Don't feel bad, big brother. What's important is that we're alive."

Crash says something to Coco via incomprehensible gibberish.

"What?" N. Gin asks in surprise. "You're saying that you really think some sort of power might show up in you over time, Crash?"

Crash nods and speaks more gibberish.

"Well, here's hoping you're right about that, big brother." Coco says as she playfully punches Crash on the arm.

"Don't worry, you two." Megumi tells them. "Just to be on the safe side, I'll hang on to this scanner and keep a close eye on Crash to see if anything changes inside of him."

"That's great!" exclaims Coco as she turns to the rest of the group. "Well then, shall we be off?"

"Off?" asks Komodo Joe, dressed in a desert roamer outfit, with Moe wearing the exact same getup as him. "Off to where?"

"It's high time we taught that rat and that robot a good old fashioned lesson!" Coco says before turning to Oxide. "Oxide! Do you still have any more of those surveillance drones on hand?"

"Uh... let me see here..." Oxide mumbles as he searches his pockets. "Ah! Yes, I have several pocket-sized drones on hand!" He pulls out a golfball-sized drone and activates it.

"Good!" Coco exclaims. "Send one out and see if you can find out where Pinstripe is hiding."

"Can do!" Oxide says as he, Zam and Zem leave the room and out into the desert to send out the drone.

Coco turns back to the racers and says with determination, "Everyone! Time to suit up and gear up! We've got a big adventure ahead of us!"


	7. Coco's Speech & Desert Chase

Later that day, everyone has gathered outside the plant dressed in Rustland gear and armed with an assortment of weapons. Eventually, the OG 8 racers and Nina emerge from the plant in their Rustland gear and approach the racers. Coco steps out from the group and delivers a rousing speech to the crowd.

"Everyone! We are about to embark on a very perilous journey. Now, I know that that rat and that robot have taken everything we hold dear from us, and we're not about to stand idly buy while they attempt to take over this barren wasteland and shape it into a dark, grim future. We will face enemies the likes of which we have never seen before. We will encounter obstacles we must overcome. Our skills will be put to the ultimate test. And, if we're lucky, new relationships might even be made along the way. But most importantly, we will keep our chins up, we will pull through this, and together, we will stop Pinstripe and that robot from doing anymore damage! Now, who's ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime?"

Everyone erupts into cheers and war cries.

"Excellent!" Coco continues. "We move out as soon as Oxide and his minions come back with Pinstripe's exact location."

Suddenly, she hears Oxide call out her name, getting her attention.

"What is it, Oxide?" she says as Oxide, Zam and Zem come over a small hill with the drone Oxide sent out earlier.

"We found him!" Oxide exclaims. "We know where Pinstripe is!"

"Great!" Coco exclaims. "Where is he?"

"He and Geary are in an old abandoned battleship several miles due north." Oxide replies.

"North. So that's the direction we need to go in." Coco says.

"Wait." N. Gin says. "Did you say battleship?"

"Yes. Why does it matter to you?" asks Oxide, puzzled as to why N. Gin would ask about something like that.

"That's my battleship!" exclaims N. Gin. "Oh, I haven't seen that baby in quite some time."

"N. Gin, is this really necessary?" Cortex asks. "We have to get going."

"Sorry, doctor." N. Gin meekishly says.

"Cortex's right!" Coco says. "The longer we stay here, the less good it'll do for us."

"And that's not all!" Oxide exclaims, motioning everyone to follow him. "Look what else the drone found!"

* * *

Everyone approaches Oxide and looks out to discover a large assortment of at least a dozen or more vehicles which are parked in the middle of the desert. Among the vehicles parked are several Dusty Rider karts, Desert Duster karts, Nuke karts, along with several other karts which are disassembled and vandalized.

"Well, that's convenient." Liz says as everyone approaches the vehicles.

"This is perfect!" exclaims N. Gin. "We can use the rumbling roadbusters to head north, and stop that rat from bringing the doom"

"Yes, but you realize what this means now, don't you?" Coco asks him.

"No. What?" N. Gin replies.

"We all can't fit into one kart, meaning that we have to all split up into teams." Coco says.

"Teams?" asks Liz. "Perfect! This'll give us the chance to get to know one another better! We can form new friendships with this strategy!"

"Yes, true." Nash says to her, armed with a missile launcher atop his head. "But we have to focus on the mission at hand. Stop those cowards and send them swimming for the shore!" He growls and bites viciously, getting caught up in his own words, which impresses Liz.

"Oooh, I like your attitude, shark!" Liz says, intrigued. "We could use that on my team! You're riding with me!"

"Really?" Nash meekishly quips. "Wow, that was fast. And please, call me Nash."

"Okay, Nash, bizzare name. Let's find more team members!" Liz tells him as the two of them head over to the karts to find a good one to take on the road.

* * *

As Cortex, N. Gin, Penta Penguin, armed with a jetpack, and the Komodo Bros. climb aboard a green coated Dusty Rider kart, Ami and Crunch are busy saying their goodbyes.

"Now, Ami dear, you be careful out there, okay?" Crunch worriedly says to her, fearing for her safety.

"Hey, don't worry about me, baby." Ami replies with reassurance. "I've gotten through worse scrapes than this!"

"Well, all right. If you say so, dear." Crunch says.

Ami kisses him on the cheek before climbing into the kart with Cortex and the others. Crunch sighs and rubs his arm before looking for a team to ride with. "I really hope she'll be okay out there." he says to himself as Nina walks past him.

"What? You mean your green-haired girlfriend?" Nina asks him. "Please. You worry about her too much. She whopped me in arm wrestling twenty times in a row onboard the carrier. Almost broke my arms off. Had to keep repairing them because of her massive strength."

"Crunch, come on!" Liz calls out. Crunch and Nina turn and see Liz and Nash aboard a pink-coated Nuke kart. "She'll be fine!"

"Yeah, you're more than welcome to ride with us if you like!" Nash calls out.

As Crunch starts towards their kart, Nina follows close behind. Crunch notices this and asks, "So, you planning on riding with us, kid?"

Nina replies, "Well, looks like I don't have a choice here. I don't have a team to ride with, and that shark thingy looks cool. I love animals that eat other animals for fun!"

"Well, I hope you like a shark that's been programmed to never stop moving, kiddo." Crunch says to her.

As the two of them climb into the kart with Liz and Nash, an unexpected guest follows them into the kart: Rilla Roo.

"Hey! Watch it, monkey boy!" Nash shouts. "Where did you even come from anyway?"

Liz and Crunch look at each other and shrug.

"Well, regardless of where he came from, it looks like he's riding with us, like it or not." Liz says to Nina and Nash.

"Great." Nina grumbles as Rilla Roo hops up and down, laughing to himself. "Now I have to deal with a literal banana breath."

* * *

Crash gathers his team, consisting of him, Coco, Pura, Tawna and Megumi, and they all climb aboard a yellow colored Dusty Rider kart. Tawna groans as she sees Zam and Zem standing outside their kart.

"Please tell me these two clowns aren't coming with us." she grumbles.

"I'm sorry, Tawna." Megumi says as she lets them in. "Oxide wouldn't let us leave them behind. His ruler wouldn't be happy about it."

Suddenly, Crash's face lights up with fear and he starts to sweat as he recalls a certain galactic emperor he and his friends encountered in the past.

"Don't worry, Crash." Coco reassures him as she rests her hand on his shoulder. "We won't need to worry about him."

"Worry about who?" Tawna asks, confused.

"Trust me." Coco warns. "You don't want to know."

Tawna and Megumi look at each other, confused, wanting to know what Coco is talking about, but not wanting to worry Crash anymore before they start their journey.

* * *

Hasty, looking for a team to ride with, approaches Dingodile, aboard a purple-coated Nuke kart along with his team, consisting of Krunk, Papu Papu and Koala Kong. He asks, "Greeting, chaps! Have room for one more?"

"Sorry, mate." Dingodile replies. "We don't have any more room."

"We're cramped enough as it is!" Krunk says, trying to get comfortable.

Koala Kong growls as he tries to get comfortable, prompting Papu Papu to shout at him, "Hey! You no push Papu so hard!"

"I'm sure you'll find someone to ride with, mate!" Dingodile says to Hasty.

"Oh, okay then." Hasty replies as he scratches his head. Suddenly, Tiny approaches him from behind and calls out his name, startling him.

"Oh, sorry. Tiny didn't mean to scare you." He says as he motions for Hasty to follow him. "Come! You can ride with Tiny's team!"

"Really? You sure?" Hasty asks as they approach a blue colored Dusty Rider kart.

"Absolutely!" Tiny says as the two of them climb aboard. Polar, Ripper Roo and King Chicken follow them into the kart.

"Heh. Looks like we got ourselves a petting zoo for a team!" Hasty jokes to Tiny as the two of them share a laugh. "So, who's leading the team? And who's driving?"

Tiny directs Hasty's attention to the driver: Isabella. Hasty's face lights up and he starts to sweat nervously as he watches her climb into the driver's seat. After she buckles up, she turns around and sees Hasty aboard the kart.

"Oh, hello there. Didn't see you come aboard." Isabella says to Hasty. "I don't think we've met. I'm Isabella. And you are?"

Hasty can only stutter as he continues to sweat nervously, prompting Tiny to speak for him. "His name is Hasty, lady bandicoot."

"Hasty?" Isabella replies. "Never heard that name before. Well, regardless, it's great to have you on my team!"

Hasty continues to sweat nervously to the point where the floorboard is filled with Hasty's sweat, reaching up to their ankles. Tiny notices this and asks, "Can someone open door, please?"

* * *

As Oxide's team, consisting of him, the Norms and the babies, climbs aboard an aqua colored Desert Duster kart, Yaya looks around for a kart before her face lights up as she spots one.

"Wow!" exclaims Yaya Panda, approaching another sleek Desert Duster, this one being coated in red paint. "Look at this bad boy!"

She leaps into the kart, but before she can take off, Chick and Stew climb aboard, with Chick telling her, "Hold on there, little panda cub! You're going to need adult supervision out here!"

"Ugh." Yaya groans. "Killjoys..."

"Wait." Stew says. "Who's Joy? And who killed her?! Don't leave me in suspense here, kid!"

* * *

Fake Crash searches around for a vehicle to get into before Pasadena, aboard an orange coated Nuke kart, notices him, having becoming smitten with him when the two of them met during their Neon Circus Grand Prix. She then calls out rather seductively, "Hey, cutie! Wanna take a ride with a beautiful Southern gal like me?"

Fake Crash, excited, races towards the kart and leaps in with Pasadena, Von Clutch and N. Trance. Pasadena playfully giggles as Fake Crash tries to make coherent words to say thank you.

* * *

Coco turns to everyone and asks, "All right, is everyone on a team?"

Everyone shouts, "Yes!"

"All right, then!" Coco says. "If we all stay together, there's no way we can get lost. Now, let's—"

Before Coco can finish her words, she turns and spots the same carrier that Geary sent out earlier. She alerts the group, who all turn to face the carrier. Moments later, the cargo bay doors open as several Titans of various shapes and sizes barge out of the carrier and towards the racers.

"Everyone..." Coco whimpers in fear. "I don't mean to sound like a coward here, but... _LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!_"

Everyone slams their feet on the gas pedals as they all drive off. A chase then ensues as the Titans follow them close behind, hot in pursuit. Everyone tries to keep going straight, but the Titans send out various attacks at the racers, forcing them to break off in multiple directions. Coco takes note of this.

"No!" she screams. "What are you all doing?! We have to go north! North!"

"We're trying!" shouts Dingodile. Suddenly, a Sludge Titan lands atop the hood of their kart, causing everyone to scream. The Sludge Titan busts through the hood of the kart with its hand, and pulls out their engine before grabbing a large amount of slime from its' body and throwing it into their tailpipe.

"Oh, that's not good." Dingodile groans as their kart begins to careen out of control before crashing into a large rock. Dingodile gets up and sees several Titans surrounding their kart.

"Oh, crikey." he whimpers as the Titans grab him and his team.

The chase continues as the racers struggle to keep going northbound, but their attempts are thwarted by the Titans, who keep blocking their path.

"Northbound we said! Northbound!" Coco groans to Crash and the rest of their team. "Looks like we're the only ones going north!"

"Don't worry, Coco." reassures Tawna. "I'm sure the other racers will catch up to us, and then we can keep going north as we planned—"

Suddenly, she sees Crash, Coco and Megumi with frightened looks on their faces, prompting her to ask, "What?"

The three of them point behind her. She turns around and gasps in fear as she sees a Spike Titan holding on to their kart. She screams in fear as the Titan grabs her and throws her out of the kart into the air.

"Tawna!" Coco and Megumi shout while Crash screams in agony.

Oxide and his team notice Tawna flying through the air and see her falling towards a cliff. In a panic, Oxide immediately reacts and starts to drive towards the cliff. As Tawna falls closer to the cliff, Oxide slams on the gas pedal so hard, their kart achieves blue fire, allowing him to catch up to Tawna and grab her before she goes over the cliff.

"Don't worry, Tawna." Oxide reassures her. "I got you."

He and Big Norm lift her into their kart, where Small Norm comforts her while she breathes heavily.

"Now, let's get back to the others." Oxide says.

Before they can start driving, a Spike Titan destroys their engine by throwing a giant spike at it. A Ratcicle Titan then blocks their exits by creating several ice walls around them. Everyone trembles with fear as the Titans surround them. A Shellephant Titan then bellows out, ordering the Titans to fall back to the carrier with Oxide and Dingodile's teams in tow.

Crash, seeing Tawna being carried off into the carrier, hits the brakes on his kart and watches as she, along with Oxide and Dingodile's teams, are loaded onto the carrier, which takes off northbound at hyper-speed. Crash bellows in agony as he watches the carrier fly away in the blink of an eye.

"What are we going to do now?" Megumi asks Coco.

"Well, we can't regroup at this point, so I guess we'll have to keep going." Coco says as she grabs a walkie-talkie radio and pages the other teams. "Everyone! Keep heading north! We're Tawna's only hope at rescuing her and our friends, and stopping Pinstripe."

She hangs up and Crash continues to drive their kart northbound.

* * *

Isabella, upon hearing Coco's message, starts to breathe heavily. "Oh, Coco, please be careful. I don't want anything to happen to you out here!" she says to herself.

"Hey, don't worry, Isabella." reassures Hasty as he pulls out a compass. "I can guide us northbound to the battleship!"

Isabella stops breathing for a moment, turns to Hasty and asks, "You sure?"

"Positive!" Hasty replies. "Now let's move!"

Isabella resumes driving their kart as they head northbound.


	8. Your New King

Eventually, the carrier holding Tawna, Dingodile and the prisoners arrives at its' destination: the battleship. Surrounding the ship is an obstacle course with paintball mines laying about all over the place, or as one would call it, the Megamix Mania track. The cruiser docks at the bow of the ship and the cargo bay doors are opened. Suddenly, a voice calls out from outside, "All right, let's go, you maggots! Our new king wishes to have a word with you all!"

The Titans start pushing the prisoners out of the carrier and into the ship. As Tawna and the others are taken inside the ship, she sees who was shouting at them: Gnasty Gnorc, who has been promoted to Captain of the Guard, who glares at her and the others menacingly as they go inside.

* * *

Inside the hull of the ship, which is old and rusty from years of decay from not being used in years, N. Tropy is being held prisoner and is bound by shackles, which he continuously struggles to try and break free from. He shouts, "Geary, you psycho!"

Up on a nearby balcony, Geary, who is wearing N. Tropy's body armor and wielding his staff, is forcing N. Brio to create some sort of creature inside a rather large containment unit.

"I'm going to teach you a lesson once I break free from these shackles!" N. Tropy continues to shout.

"Shut your pie hole, you filthy thing!" shouts Geary. "You're interrupting our dear doctor friend, who has graciously volunteered to help us with our little experiment!"

N. Brio turns to Geary and says, "Yes, but if by 'volunteered,' you mean 'forced,' right?"

"Shut up!" Geary snaps. "Not another word out of you, or our new friend here will set you straight!"

Out of the shadows emerges a new mask, Apo-Apo, who was created from the magic of Aku Aku and Uka Uka. The mask comes closer to Brio with glowing red eyes.

"Right! Right, I'll get back to it." Brio panics as he resumes working on the creature. "Please don't hurt me!"

"Good!" says Geary.

The sound of a door opening is heard, which gets the attention of Geary.

"Come on, double time! Let's go!" Gnasty Gnorc says as he enters the room. "Don't keep our king waiting!"

Tawna and the rest of the prisoners are led inside the hull of the ship and up to a makeshift throne room with several "P" insignia and banners hung everywhere.

"I swear, if our king is who I think it is, then..." Tawna mumbles under her breath.

"Ah, isn't this just lovely?" says Geary. "We have guests!"

Geary leaps off the balcony, lands next to the throne and addresses the prisoners, saying, "Greetings, all! You may already know me, but for those who don't, the name's Geary."

"We don't wanna hear it, you bucket of bolts!" Big Norm shouts.

"Yeah! You used to race for us!" Krunk exclaims. "How could you do this to us?"

"Why is shiny metal man dressed like blue time doctor?" Papu Papu asks.

"Because he's usurped me of my powers!" N. Tropy shouts. He then turns to Geary and tries to reason with him. "I'm telling you, Geary, you have to let me go! If you just give me back my powers, I can use the staff to undo all this destruction and restore Earth back to the way it was before your ruler nuked it!"

Tawna gasps with excitement and turns to the prisoners as N. Tropy continues to try and reason with Geary.

"Did you hear that, guys?" She whispers to them. "There's a chance we can fix this!"

Oxide whispers back, "Yeah! All we have to do is free N. Tropy, get the staff back and—"

Before he can finish speaking, Gnasty Gnorc shouts at them, "Silence!"

"Look, just let me go, and I'll give you and your master whatever it is you want!" N. Tropy pleads. "I promise!"

Suddenly, a voice calls out, "No deal, mac! What we want you can't give to us!"

This gets Gnasty Gnorc's attention as he fumbles and mutters to himself, "Oh, right! He's coming! I've got to say my lines!"

Gnasty Gnorc darts towards the throne, faces the prisoners and gets into position. He clears his throat and loudly announces, "Presenting your new king of this rustic wasteland!"

He continues talking as the king enters the room. "You know him, you love him, and we know for sure you can't get enough of him! Please give a warm Rustland welcome to our new ruler, Pinstripe!"

Pinstripe enters the room decked with a makeshift crown, a sleek purple suit, a cape made from an old bed comforter, a scepter with an orange gem on top, and loads of jewels across his person.

"Please forgive me for my somewhat ragged appearance, everyone." Pinstripe says as he turns to the prisoners. "I had to work with what I could find."

"Pinstripe!" Tawna angrily exclaims, "You jerk! You got some nerve kidnapping me and bringing us here! Why did you have to go and nuke the earth anyway, huh?!"

Pinstripe's face lights up as he sees Tawna amongst the prisoners and exclaims, "Ah! Well, isn't this a pleasant surprise!" He approaches Gnasty Gnorc and pats him on the back. "Excellent work, Mr. Gnorc! You brought me my queen! Keep up the good work and soon, you'll feast on dragon and cheetah stew!"

He gestures upwards to Spyro the Dragon and Hunter, who are tied up high in the rafters and unable to move or speak, because their mouths have been gagged, which doesn't stop them from letting out muffled cries for help.

Pinstripe turns to the prisoners and tells them, "You see, not too long ago, those two goody-goody do-gooders tried to stop me from ruling these wastelands, and so, well... I'm sure you all can guess what happened from there."

"You fiend!" Tawna angrily exclaims.

Krunk leans close to Tawna and whispers, "Psst! What does he mean by you being your queen?"

Tawna whispers back to Krunk, "Well, firstly, he had the hots for me when Cortex kept me prisoner and has been a massive creep to me and my friends ever since Crash rescued me. And another thing..." She steps towards Pinstripe and shouts, "I'm not your queen, Pinstripe!"

Dingodile joins Tawna by her side and likewise shouts, "Yeah, mate! Why don't you just back off before I take that scepter and shove it where the sun don't shine?"

"Oh, ho ho ho! We got us a couple of wiseguys here, don't we?" Pinstripe says before he snaps his fingers. "Mr. Gnorc! Place that croc front and center right there! And bring that blonde-haired beauty to me!"

He pushes Dingodile to the ground in front of Pinstripe's throne, grabs Tawna by the forearm and drags her up to Pinstripe.

"Hey!" Tawna yells as she's being dragged up to Pinstripe. "Just because it's the apocalypse doesn't mean we can't be civil here, pal!"

She gasps as she sees Pinstripe looking at her rather seductively.

"Stop staring at me, you creep!" she angrily says to Pinstripe. "And let us out of here!"

"Now why would I do that, my love?" asked Pinstripe. "Do I have to remind you who makes the rules here?"

"No, because you're not our king!" Tawna angrily replies.

"Oh, that's where you're wrong, my precious." says Pinstripe. "And as your new king, I'm about to show you what happens to those who step out of line!" Pinstripe whistles for someone.

Tawna reacts with shock and surprise as she sees Apo-Apo coming down from the balcony and towards Pinstripe.

"Say hello to my new witch doctor mask friend, Apo-Apo." Pinstripe says to her.

"'Apo-Apo?'" Tawna asks. "Okay, that's kind of cheesy, to be honest."

"You see, Apo-Apo here draws power from those other two masks that used to watch over us." says Pinstripe.

"You... You don't mean..." She asks as she looks up towards the ceiling.

She gasps in shock as she sees the lifeless shells of Aku Aku and Uka Uka dangling from the rafters.

"You fiend!" she growls.

"I know. I'm irresistable, ain't I?" Pinstripe tells her. "Now let me show you the full extent of Apo's powers." He turns to Apo-Apo. "Apo!"

He gestures towards Dingodile as a Ratcicle Titan holds Dingodile's head up, forcing him to look at the mask. Apo-Apo then approaches Dingodile, looks him dead in the eyes and puts him under his control with a hypnotic spell. Dingodile struggles to resist, but doesn't have any luck. Once finished, Dingodile collapses on the ground.

"Dingodile?" Tawna worriedly asks.

Suddenly, Dingodile jolts up with glowing orange eyes and growls like a vicious animal. Everyone reacts in fear.

"Listen to me, you croc!" yells Pinstripe as Dingodile turns to him.

"I want you to go out into the desert, find Crash and kill him!" shouts Pinstripe. "Do whatever you want to his friends, but I want Crash dead as a doornail! You got that?"

Dingodile replies in a demonic voice, "Yessss, my master!"

He leaps out of the battleship and races off southbound into the desert to find Crash and the others, armed with his lava gun.

Tawna turns to Pinstripe and begs, "No! You can't kill someone as sweet, kind and innocent as Crash! I love him!"

"Just watch, my fluffy croissant." Pinstripe tells her. "With him out of the way, there's nothing that will stop you from becoming my queen!"

"You're crazy! I'm out of here!" Tawna turns to the prisoners and says, "Come on, guys! We're leaving!"

As Tawna attempts to leave, she is stopped dead in her tracks by a group of Ratnicians who start to gang up on her and force her back to Pinstripe's side.

"Not so fast, my pretty!" Pinstripe says as he slowly approaches her. "You're not going anywhere."

He grabs her by the forearm, pulls her in close and seductively tells her, "You belong to me now, my sexy desert queen."

Tawna exclaims in disgust and shouts, "I will _NEVER_ be your queen, you jerk!" before pushing him back.

"Oh, you want to get smart with me, do youse?" Pinstripe says as he storms up to Tawna, who slowly backs away in fear. "Well, two can play that game!"

Tawna gasps in horror as Pinstripe raises his fist. The prisoners watch in horror as we hear the sound of a fist landing off-camera, followed by Tawna screaming in pain. Tawna then collapses on the ground, breathing shakily as Pinstripe slowly approaches her.

"Oh, good lord!" Big Norm exclaims.

Pinstripe grabs Tawna by the chin and forces her to look him dead in the eyes.

"Awww, does someone have a boo-boo on their mouth?" Pinstripe asks. "Here, let me _kiss it_ to make it _feel better_!"

He leans in to force a kiss on Tawna, who fearfully struggles to push him away.

Finally, N. Tropy, already fed up with Pinstripe's stalker-ish behavior, reaches his breaking point and yells, "Pinstripe, you cad! That's enough!"

N. Tropy exerts so much force that he breaks free from his shackles. He storms up to Pinstripe, socks him clean across the nose and shouts, "You let her go and leave her alone NOW!"

"Oh, N. Tropy..." Pinstripe says as he rubs his nose. "I never thought that you would be the type of guy to be a troublemaker."

N. Tropy starts looking concerned as Pinstripe raises his hand.

Pinstripe continues, "And you know what we do with troublemakers on my turf, do youse?"

He snaps his fingers. N. Tropy and Tawna both gasp in shock and horror as he his struck by a bolt of energy from Gnasty Gnorc's weapon and is frozen solid.

"Looks like you'll have to learn the hard way what we do with troublemakers on my turf!" Pinstripe yells.

Geary then, using N. Tropy's very own staff, picks N. Tropy up and throws him all the way across the room. N. Tropy hits the far wall and is smashed to pieces upon impact. N. Brio and the prisoners all react with with a look of absolute fear on their faces.

"Oh, good heavens!" N. Brio frightfully exclaims. "Now how are we going to undo this mess?!"

Tawna gasps in horror and screams, "N. TROPY! NO!"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. He was a good man." Pinstripe tells her. "Should've learned that you don't assult your king."

Tawna glares at Pinstripe with a look of pure anger on her face. Breathing shakily, she screams at him, "You... you... you MONSTER! First, you nuke the earth, killing billions, then you kill an innocent feline, assault me and threaten my friends, but to kill the one person who has a remote chance of undoing all this chaos and destruction?! THIS IS LOW, EVEN FOR YOU!"

"Me? A monster?" Pinstripes scoffs. "No, no, no. I'm no monster. Brio over there is working on the monster."

"Seriously, is there any way we can revive N. Tropy?" N. Brio fearfully begs. "We really need to undo this mess!"

Geary shouts at him, "Silence, you fool, and get back to work!"

"Yes, sir." N. Brio meekishly replies as he resumes working on the creature inside the tube as Apo-Apo stares him down.

"And besides, I'm really only doing what's best for my sweet, little sugar plum." Pinstripe sensually says as pinches Tawna's cheeks, prompting her to slap his hand away.

Tawna screams at him, "I'M NOT YOUR LITTLE SUGAR PLUM, YOU UNFORGIVABLE JERK!"

"Don't you yell at him!" Geary shouts as he storms up to Tawna, pointing N. Tropy's staff at her. "That's no way for a respectable queen to treat her king!"

"Will you two PLEASE stop calling me a queen?!" Tawna yells as she pushes the staff away. "I want nothing to do with this rat! I hate him!"

"Oh, don't you worry, my dear." Pinstripe tells her. "Give me a few days and I'll make you love me even more than that idiotic orange weasel you pretend to care so much about."

Tawna roars through clinched teeth, "_**HE'S A BANDICOOT.** I LOVE HIM WITH ALL MY HEART AND HE'S GOING TO TEACH YOU A LESSON ONCE HE GETS HERE TO SAVE ME!_"

Pinstripe replies, "Hmm. We'll see about that. But, in the meantime..." He snaps his fingers and calls out, "Ratnicians! Titans!"

A group of Ratnicians gang up and surround Tawna, while a large assortment of Titans surround the prisoners. Pinstripe tells them, "First, you Titans can escort our new prisoners down to their cells!"

The Titans growl in agreement and begin dragging the prisoners down below to the dungeon.

"Hey! Watch it, wiseguy!" Oxide exclaims.

"Ow, stop pushing!" Krunk exclaims.

"If any one of you lays just one finger on my little buddy [Small Norm] here..." Big Norm growls as they leave the room.

Pinstripe turns to Tawna and the Ratnicians and says, "And for you Ratnicians, show my future queen to her chambers, and slip her into something that I would find pleasurable."

"With pleasure, milord!" a Ratnician replies.

Two Ratnicians grab Tawna by her arms and forcefully take her away as the other Ratnicians follow close behind, giggling menacingly.

"Come along, you!" the same Ratnician says. "We've got to make you look like a desert queen!"

Grunting and struggling as she's being dragged off, Tawna yells, "No! Let go of me!" She growls to Pinstripe, "I hate you so much, Pinstripe! Just you wait until Crash and the others get here!" As Tawna and the Ratnicians leave the room, she screams, "YOU ARE GOING TO BE SO SORRY!"

Pinstripe chuckles to himself, "Oh, am I, my dear? I don't think so."

Pinstripe glances out at the desert dunes and continues to himself, "Just wait until that orange idiot and his friends see what I have planned for him. This time, Tawna is as good as mine!" Pinstripe smiles sinisterly.


	9. Learn to Have a Little Fun with Ami!

In another part of the desert, Team Cortex slowly drives their kart through the sandy dunes. Cortex is happily humming along to the easy-listening muzak playing on the radio of their kart, Ami and N. Gin are sulking about, glancing at the passing dunes with dull, bored looks on their faces, Penta is happily playing with a yo-yo Crash gave him a while ago and the Komodo Bros. are slowly drifting off to sleep from boredom.

N. Gin, tired of going at a snail's pace, groans, "Ugh! Can this kart go any faster, Cortex?"

Cotrex, understanding N. Gin's concern, but knowing they can't draw too much attention to themselves, tells him, "Well, we need to keep a low profile so that no more Titans will find us. After all, we don't want to have another chase like we had earlier, now do we?"

N. Gin sighs in frustration and grumbles, "If you say so, Cortex..." while Penta nods, agreeing with Cortex's words.

Ami groans and exclaims, "This is so boring! I want some action!"

"Calm down, Ami. We'll get to Pinstripe before you know it." Komodo Joe tells her.

"Not at this speed, we won't!" Ami snaps at the two of them.

Komodo Moe, baffled by her sudden change in attitude, scolds her, "Watch your attitude, you!"

"Ssssstop behaving like a sssspoiled teenager, you brat!" Komodo Joe shouts at her.

"Hey! For your information, I'm not a teenager, I'm 22!" Ami yells at them as Penta cowers in his seat, not being used to heated arguments such as this.

Before their argument can escalate any further, Cortex turns around and yells at them, "Hey! Stop bickering or so help me, I will turn this kart around and we will go right back to the carrier!"

The three of them sulk back into their seats with their arms folded.

"Fine." Komodo Joe grumbles.

"We never get to win an argument these dayssss." Komodo Moe groans.

Suddenly, Ami's face lights up as she spots something in the distance. "Hold on! Stop the kart, Cortex!" she exclaims.

Cortex stops the kart and Ami grabs a pair of binoculars. She looks out and sees a massive horde of Titans coming their way.

Ami's face lights up with excitement as she shouts, "Oh, _**YES!**_ I've been craving for more action since that chase earlier today! _Let's go!_"

"But, Ami! There's hundreds of them!" Komodo Moe worriedly tells her.

"Don't put us in danger, please!" Komodo Joe begs.

Ami scoffs, "Put you in danger? Please." Ami shows off her muscles and pecs to the pair as she continues to speak. "You do realize you're talking to someone who spends a full work week exercising and training, and who also won several gold medals in sports."

"Trust us." Cortex reassures the Komodo Bros. "We'll keep you safe."

"Just hold on to something, you two!" N. Gin tells them while laughing excitedly. "It's going to be a bumpy ride!"

He pulls the crank on his faceplate apparatus, activating it and sending sparks flying. Penta fires up his jetpack and takes flight above the kart. Ami pulls out her backpack, which is stuffed with explosives.

"This is going to be..." She says as puts on a pair of shades. "...explosive! Hit it, Cortex!"

"Hold on, everyone!" Cortex yells as he switches the radio to hard rock music and slams his foot on the gas pedal. They take off toward the Titans at high speeds, with Penta following them close behind on his jetpack.

As they drive through the horde, Ami grabs explosives and holds them up to N. Gin's apparatus, lighting the fuse. She then tosses them to the Titans, blowing them to pieces, while Penta fires missiles at the Titans. Cortex occasionally fires some dark matter at the Titans, holding them in place while they're blown to bits by the explosives tossed their way. Ami and N. Gin happily scream and laugh the entire time while the Komodo Bros. tremble with fear in the back seat.

"Guys! Please! This is crazy!" Komodo Moe screams as he grabs onto Joe.

"Yeah! Can you ssssslow down please, Cortex?!" Komodo Joe yells.

As Ami continues to throw explosives at the Titans, she turns and sees the Komodo Bros. shaking with fear at the chaos around them.

"Don't just sit there, you two!" she excitedly tells them. "Grab those nunchucks on the floorboard! Have a little fun!"

The Komodo Bros. look at each other with concern before Komodo Joe sighs, "If you insist..."

They reluctantly grab the two pairs of nunchucks on the floorboard and start blindly hitting the Titans with them. Scared at first, they slowly grow to enjoy it before standing up and mercilessly whacking several Titans with their nunchucks, all with big goofy grins on their faces.

Eventually, the horde leader, seeing that the Titans are mercilessly being pulverized by Ami and the others, calls for a full retreat in a panic. As the Titan horde flees to the east, Cortex hits the brakes as they watch the Titans scurry away.

Ami, breathing heavily from the excitement, happily screams, "_WHOO! THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN, YOU GUYS!_"

"Oh, I haven't had that much fun since my father took me to Romania!" N. Gin laughs happily.

"Yes, it's great to let off a little steam to get all this stress out of our system." Cortex says as he turns to the Komodo Bros. "Isn't that right, Moe-Joe?"

Komodo Moe hesitates for a moment before gleefully replying, "You know, I hate to say this, but... yes, that actually was fun!"

"Yeah! Let's find another horde of Titans and do that again!" Komodo Joe happily exclaims.

"Oh, I _have_ to call Liz!" Ami exclaims. "Wait'll she hears about all the fun we just had!"

"Heh. Now I see why Crunch fell in love with her." N. Gin says to the group. "She's lot of fun to be around!"

Ami grabs their radio and pages for Liz, "Hey, Lizzie! You there?"


	10. Problems for Team Liz

Over with Team Liz, their kart has a flat tire and is parked in the middle of a large desert plain near a massive rock formation. Nina and Nash are attempting to repair the flat tire while Rilla Roo has managed to pry the trunk of the kart open and is busy rummaging through it.

Liz takes the radio from their kart and speaks into it, "Liz here. What's going on, Ami?"

"_Oh, not much, other than me and my team had a BLAST beating the snot out of a massive horde of Titans!_" Ami exclaims through the radio. "_I've never felt so alive!_"

"Great. Glad you're having fun." Liz says to her, sarcastically.

"_Wait. I know that tone of voice._" Ami says through the radio. "_What's wrong, Lizzie?_"

Liz replies, "Well, we've got a flat tire on our end, so it looks like we'll have to walk the rest of the way and..."

Suddenly, she sees Rilla Roo rummaging through the trunk of their kart.

"And I think we might be having monkey stew before the day is done." she says as she hands the radio to Crunch and gets out of the kart.

"Just keep going north, Ami, dear." Crunch says. "We'll see you when we regroup at the battleship."

"_Got it, Crunch, honey._" Ami says through the radio as she blows a kiss.

"Aww..." Crunch chuckles.

Liz approaches Rilla Roo and asks him, "Hey! Monkey boy! Just what do you think you're—"

She stops and see that Rilla Roo has devoured everything in their trunk, including their only spare tire. He burps up the hubcap, much to Liz's disgust.

"You... you foolish ape... kangaroo thing! Did you seriously eat all of our food?!" yells Liz. By this point, Crunch, Nina and Nash have also approached Rilla Roo and discovered what he has done.

"And our only spare?!" Nina likewise yells.

Rilla Roo looks around, and can only shrug and smile meekishly.

Nash advances on him, angrily growling, "Why, you little...!"

"Nash! Calm down!" Crunch says as he stops Nash in his tracks. "Don't hurt him! He's just an ape! He doesn't know any better."

"Very well, then." Nash groans before turning to Rilla Roo. "Just be thankful that I'm a vegetarian shark, you fool!"

"Okay, we have a flat tire, and our only spare is gone, along with all of our food and rations." Liz says to the rest of the group. "Anyone have any ideas on what to do now?"

Nina approaches Liz and tells her, "Okay, I don't like you and you don't like me, but it looks like we'll have to work together to not only keep moving northbound, but to also find food before we all starve to death."

"She makes a good point there, Liz." Crunch says to Liz. "If we stay here, we'll surely starve and end up as a meal for some hungry Titan. What do you say?"

Liz ignores Crunch's words and scoffs at Nina, "'We don't like you?' You bein' serious right now? I don't even know who you are, kid!"

"Oh, right! My apologies. Where are my manners?" Nina says. "Hi, I am Nina Cortex, and I am Dr. Cortex's niece. Put 'er there!"

She extends one of her robotic arms for a handshake. Liz reacts in surprise, hesitating to return her handshake.

"You're going to ask about my arms, aren't you?" Nina asks, annoyed.

Liz nervously shakes Nina's hand as she says, "So, are these arms normal for the Cortex family?"

"It's a long story." Nina replies.

"Well, let's put a pin in this conversation and keep moving." Nash says as he starts northbound. "We need to find food soon or we'll perish!"

"I'm with him and Nina." says Crunch as he and Nina follow Nash. "After all, sharks are known to detect food miles and miles away."

"Yeah, we should keep going." Liz says as they leave their kart behind and continue moving north with Rilla Roo following close behind.

"Ugh! Do we really have to bring this monkey with us?" Nina exclaims.

"Of course!" Liz says as they continue walking. "He's part of our team, and no one gets left behind."

Nina groans as they continue to head northbound.


	11. Lost in the Desert

Meanwhile, in another part of the desert, Yaya, Chick and Stew are driving around in their kart, with Chick and Stew on the lookout for any sign of hope, be it survivors, food or shelter, but with no luck.

"See anything yet, guys?" Yaya asks the two of them.

"Nope, not a thing." Chick replies as he sits back down.

After a beat, Stew groans and whines, "Oh, what's the point, Chick? We're lost! We may never find our friends again!"

Fearing that his fellow co-anchor and friend might be right, Chick regretfully tells him as Yaya listens in, "Yes, you may be right, Stew, old friend. We had a good run."

"And it's only a matter of time before some giant beast comes along and eats us alive." Stew whines as he hugs Chick.

"What?!" Yaya exclaims as she stops the kart. She turns to Chick and Stew and asks them, "Seriously? You two are giving up just like that?"

"Well, little panda, we're chickens." Stew moans to her. "It's in our nature to be cowards."

"'Cowards?'" Yaya asks in disbelief. "I don't think you two are cowards!"

"Really?" Chick asks, surprised.

"You... you don't?" Stew likewise asks her.

"No! You just need to act more tough, determined and confident about the situation at hand!" Yaya tells them with confidence. "Are we lost? Yes. Do we not have any food or water to live off of? Not a single morsel or drop. But that doesn't mean it's over. In times like this, you know what I do?"

"What?" Chick asks her. "What do you do?"

"I keep going!" Yaya says as she stands up with determination. "And if we're lucky, we may find food, shelter or even better, our friends!" She places her hands on the shoulders and continues, "I know you two can be brave and courageous if you just put your minds to it! So, what do you say? Are you two with me, or do you two want to spend the rest of your days being metaphorical chickens?"

Stew's face begins to light up as he says with rising confidence, "Yeah. Yeah! You're starting to make sense, little panda!"

"Thank you!" Yaya replies as she sits back down. "And please, call me Yaya."

"Let's do it, Chick!" Stew excitedly says. "Let's keep going!"

"Lead the way, Yaya!" Chick yells with confidence.

"Now that's the enthusiasm I'm looking for!" Yaya exclaims as she resumes driving the kart. "I just hope we find any of our friends soon..."

* * *

Elsewhere, Team Pasadena is parked in another open plain of nothing. Von Clutch is looking through a set of binoculars to see if he can spot anyone for help while N. Trance paces around and Pasadena sits on a nearby rock with a wistful look on her face.

"_Mein Gott_, it's so hot out here." Von Clutch groans as he wipes sweat away from his forehead. "It's hot enough to fry an—"

"_DON'T. EVEN._" N. Trance growls to him.

Pasadena sighs contently, getting the attention of Von Clutch and N. Trance.

"Ohh! And what's gotten into you, _mein fraulein_?" Von Clutch curiously asks as he and N. Trance approach her.

"Isn't he just the cutest, the way he's out there protecting us even though we're stranded in the middle of nowhere?" Pasadena wistfully asks in a daze.

Von Clutch and N. Trance look out and see Fake Crash, armed with a paintball gun, pacing back and forth in front of their kart defending them from any threats that could possible come their way. Their faces light up as they both turn to each other with big, goofy grins on their faces.

"Ooohhh, ho-ho-ho-ho-HO!" they both exclaim.

"What?" Pasadena asks, confused.

"Don't say another word, my dear!" Von Clutch says to her. "We know exactly what's going on here!"

"You're in love with that Crash look-alike!" N. Trance says as the two of them happily laugh while they pat Pasadena on the back.

Pasadena hesitates for a moment before replying, "Well... yes, I do love him, but there's no need to make fun of me for it."

Upon hearing this, Von Clutch and N. Trance stop laughing and turn to Pasadena, with Von Clutch reassuring her, "Oh, _nein_, we're not making fun of you. We're glad for you!"

"Really?" Pasadena asks.

"Positive, _mein frau_. It's your choice and we support it, even if we are a little confused by it." Von Clutch happily says to her as he and N. Trance look out at Fake Crash, who is still pacing back and forth before spotting a buzzard flying overhead. He fires a blast of paint at it, causing it to plummet and land beak first onto the ground. It then scurries away in fear as Fake Crash glares at it.

Pasadena smiles contently, and then says, "You know what? Let me see if I can get a hold of Isabella and her team. I haven't heard from them since we all split up from that chase earlier."

Pasadena goes over to their kart, grabs the radio and turns it on.

"Hello, Isabella? Come in, Isabella!" she says into the radio.


	12. Isabella's Fury

Elsewhere, Isabella and her team are driving through the desert, eventually making their way to a valley full of abandoned, rusty and decaying cargo ships, similar to, but not exactly like the battleship Pinstripe is hiding away in. Isabella attempts to listen to Pasadena through the radio, but she's only able to hear her say through the static, "_You there, Isabella? Hello? You th—_"

The radio gives out. Isabella bangs on it with her fist to get it to work, but with no luck.

Isabella groans in frustration and says, "I swear, this walkie-talkie radio has been on the fritz ever since we got chased by those creatures!"

"Here, Isabella! I have a set of tools here. Maybe I can fix it for you!" Hasty says with determination.

"Not now, Hasty. Wait 'till we stop the car at least." Isabella says, mildly annoyed.

Hasty then says after a bit of hesitation, "Oh. Well, then can I at least..."

Isabella then turns to Hasty and says to him, "Look, Hasty, I know you're trying to help here, but I'm trying to focus on driving here and I don't want us to have an accident. Whatever assistance you have, it can wait until we're stopped, okay?"

"Oh. Okay, then." Hasty says as he looks out at the passing dunes and ships.

"Lady bandicoot! Look!" Tiny calls out, getting everyone's attention.

Everyone turns to their right and sees the battleship below them in the distance. Isabella exclaims with happiness as she turns to the rest of the team and exclaims, "There it is! The battleship! We made it!"

"Yes, we sure did!" Hasty exclaims as he holds up his compass. "Told you I'd get us here."

"Good job, moose!" Tiny says as the two of them high five each other.

Isabella says with determination, "Hold on, Tawna. I'm coming to save y—"

Suddenly, as they get closer to the battleship, a sputtering sound is heard before the kart comes to a halt at a rocky plain next to a massive cargo ship on a cliff at least 30 to 40 feet above the battleship. One of the wheels falls off the kart after it stops.

"What?!" Isabella shouts as she and her team all get out of the kart. She looks at the detached tire and storms to the hood of the kart with Hasty following her, continuing to shout, "No, no, no, no! This can't be happening! Not here! Not now!"

She opens the hood of the kart as smoke pours out. Upon closer inspection, she and Hasty discover that the kart battery is dead.

"Great! Our kart battery's kaput! Of all the times for it to go dead, too!" She sighs in frustration before looking around. She eventually spots an open pathway between two large rocks. "Look. I can see a path between those two tall rocks over there." She continues as she gathers her things from the kart, "Guess we'll all have to walk the rest of the way to the battleship since we can't jump or climb down this cliff."

She starts towards the path and tells her team, "Come on, everyone! Grab your things and let's go."

"Lady bandicoot!" Tiny calls out as he looks out at the path Isabella pointed out. "You might want to see this."

"What?" she asks as she and the rest of the team approach Tiny.

Everyone looks out and discovers that the only path leading to the battleship is riddled with above-ground stalagmites and streams of molten lava.

Annoyed, Isabella starts pacing back and forth before launching into a rant. "Great. This is just great! The one clear path to Pinstripe and Tawna, and it's littered with booby traps that'll rip our kart to shreds and burn us alive! And not to mention, poor Coco's probably lost somewhere in this godforsaken desert and... Oh, wait! I almost forgot! Our kart battery's dead! Why do these things keep happening to me?!"

She starts to breathe heavily as Hasty slowly approaches her. He says to her, "Well, I'd say this is a real dill of a pickle we got here."

"No, you think?!" she snaps at him.

She continues to breathe heavily. Hasty thinks for a minute and gets an idea.

"Wait a minute! I got it! I know how we can get across this deathbed!" he says to Isabella as he approaches their kart. "I'll get right to work on repairing this worn-out hunk of junk and..." He lets out a chuckle. "Just wait'll you hear this idea, Isabella! What if I turned this kart into a—"

All of a sudden, already stressed out enough, Isabella explodes with anger and screams, "_Oh, will you just _**_SHUT UP ALREADY?!_**"

Everyone, except King Chicken, who paces around unaware of what's going on, gasps in shock at Isabella's fury. Even Ripper Roo, known to always be smiling maniacally, looks genuinely terrified from Isabella's sudden change in behavior.

"Whoa, hey, now." Hasty worriedly says to her as she breathes heavily. "Calm down there, Isabella—"

"CALM DOWN?! THAT'S THE **LAST** THING I WANT TO DO RIGHT NOW!" Isabella screams at Hasty, who slowly backs away in fear. "WE'RE PRACTICALLY STRANDED HERE WITH NO SAFE WAY TO KEEP GOING FORWARD, _AND YOU'RE HONEST TO GOD TELLING ME TO CALM DOWN?!_"

Hasty, genuinely frightened and upset, can only mutter, "But... I'm just trying to help—"

"_**HELP?!**_ LIKE I NEED ANYONE'S HELP RIGHT NOW!" Isabella screams as Tiny protects Ripper Roo and Polar, fearing that Isabella could possibly hurt them in her stress-induced rage. "ESPECIALLY FROM SOME MOOSE WHO JUST SHOWED UP OUT OF NOWHERE AND HELPS EVERYONE OUT TOO MUCH TO THE POINT WHERE THEY START HELPING THEMSELVES!"

Hasty reacts with shock and is genuinely hurt from Isabella's words.

"You want my advice?" Isabella yells. "For once in your short pitiful life, _**DON'T** _help others and learn to help yourself out here!"

Hasty, holding back tears, continues to try and calm Isabella down, telling her, "Look, Issy, just hear me out, okay? I'll fix the kart, we'll get you back to Coco and—"

"_**NO!**_" Isabella screams as she pushes Hasty away, who falls backwards onto the ground. He quickly attempts to back away as Isabella storms up to him and grabs him by the collar of his shirt.

"I DON'T NEED _**ANYONE'S** _HELP!" she continues to scream. "NOT FROM YOU, AND NOT FROM THESE... THESE... **_CIRCUS CLOWNS THAT ARE NOTHING BUT DEAD WEIGHT TO ME!_**"

Tiny, baffled that Isabella would even insult them in such a manner, gasps in horror as he could not believe what he was hearing. As Tiny sulks, Ripper Roo starts crying and Polar whines in sorrow, while King Chicken continues to pace around, unaware of Isabella's fury. Isabella throws Hasty back and onto the ground.

"NOW JUST LEAVE ME ALONE, ALL OF YOU!" Isabella screams as she storms off into an open plain of desert further up north past the cargo ship. "I'LL FIND COCO AND STOP THAT RAT _**MYSELF** _IF I HAVE TO!"

Hasty, visibly shaking with fright, gets up as he hears Isabella sobbing loudly in the distance. He starts toward the kart.

"But... we can't do this without lady bandicoot." Tiny says with severe concern and fear. "We need her to lead the way."

Hasty grabs a toolbox from the trunk of the kart. Heartbroken and on the verge of tears, he sadly tells Tiny, "Yeah... I'm aware of that, Tiny."

Knowing full well that Isabella distinctly said that she didn't need any help, Hasty starts to repair their kart anyway. Tiny notices this and says to him, "But Tiny thought lady bandicoot said—"

"Yeah. I heard what she said, but I'm still going to help her anyway." Hasty says sadly as he works on the kart. "After all, I help out too much, don't I?"

He starts silently sobbing to himself as he repairs the kart. Tiny then turns to Ripper Roo and Polar, sits down next to them and starts rubbing their heads in comfort.

"Don't listen to lady bandicoot's words." He reassures the two of them. "We're not clowns. Together, we can stop mean rat and free girlfriend of Crash. You'll see. She just needs time to herself, that's all." His face lights up. "Yeah. Why, Tiny think that soon, she'll be happy as a clam!"

He then hears Isabella screaming and ugly crying in the distance.

"A clam with serious mood swings... Let's give her until night time to regroup..." Tiny says, concerned as he glances towards Hasty, who is still repairing the kart.


	13. A Brainwashed Dingo

Meanwhile, Crash and his team are parked in another part of the desert. Crash and Coco tend to Pura while Zam scampers about the area, chasing after little critters that cross his path. Megumi, casually pacing about and humming to herself, notices a stray armadillo approaching her. She smiles, bends down and starts to pet it as Coco looks on.

Coco chuckles and tells Megumi, "Looks like we found Liz a pet."

"Really?" Megumi asks as she picks up the armadillo. "Can we keep it for her, then?"

"It's a joke, Megumi." Coco replies. "Better leave it be."

Megumi moans as she reluctantly lets the armadillo go, which then wanders off into the desert before being snatched up by a hungry buzzard. Megumi moans even louder.

"Megumi, has it ever occurred to you that maybe you're being a little too nice to everyone and everything that crosses your path?" Coco asks her, concerned.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Coco." Megumi replies. "I can't help it! I love everyone and everything! How could I ever be mean to someone? It would fly right in the face of my cute, adorable, child-like nature."

Coco walks up to Megumi, rests her hand on her back and tells her, "Look, Megumi. I know that being sweet, kind and cute is your thing and all, but that's not going to be enough if you want to survive out here. You need to be tough! Gritty! Ready to pounce at a moment's notice! Can you do that for me? Just this one time?"

"Mmm, okay..." Megumi replies with hesitation. "If you say so..."

She attempts to acts vicious and mean, but her effort, her attempting to force a mean look on her face and letting out a weak, timid growl, comes off as more like a kitten trying to frighten a canary. Witnessing her failed attempt at being tough, Zem snickers to himself before collapsing into hysterics, prompting Crash to sock him in the face with a spare crowbar. Crash scolds him through incomprehensible gibberish as Zem rubs his face.

"Well, 'A' for effort." Coco tells her. "We'll try again later."

"Well, you know what I think?" Zem asks. "I think—"

"Stop talking, you!" Coco shouts, prompting Zem to sulk back to their kart as Zam quietly chuckles to himself.

"Hey, guys!" Megumi calls out, getting everyone's attention. "What's that?" she continues as Crash and Coco run up to her while she looks out in the distance.

"Well, whatever it is, it's coming this way fast." Coco says as she looks out with Megumi.

Looking closer, the three of them manage to spot a distant figure rapidly charging towards the heroes.

"Why, it's Dingodile!" Megumi squeals as she waves to Dingodile. "Hey! Dingodile! Over here!"

"Wait. Stop, Megumi. Something's not right here..." Coco worriedly says. She grabs a pair of binoculars from their kart and looks through them. She freaks out when she sees Dingodile in his possessed form, slobbering like a maniac and firing up his lava gun.

"RUN!" Coco screams as she grabs Megumi's hand and makes a run for it. Crash and Pura follow close behind them while Zam and Zem stay behind at the kart.

"Don't worry, missy!" Zem reassures her as he approaches Dingodile. "I'll take care of this beast!"

He gets into position and prepares to charge towards Dingodile, shouting, "Watch out, beast! I'm so close that you can—"

Before Zem can even move a muscle, Dingodile fires a blast of lava from his gun, which hits Zem, immediately burning him to a crisp before he disintegrates into a pile of ash. His disembodied eyes blink. Zam, seeing Dingodile approaching quickly, darts off towards Crash and the others. Megumi grabs him and tosses him to Crash while Dingodile chases after them with the speed of a cheetah.

"What's happened to him?!" Megumi cries out as Dingodile gets closer.

"I don't know!" Coco responds. "But I don't want to stick around here to find out."

She then activates her super speed, but she can barely use it before Dingodile fires a massive wave of lava in front of and behind her, Crash, Pura and Zam, blocking their path. Megumi, trailing behind, screeches to a halt in front of the lava trail behind Crash and the team as Dingodile effortlessly crosses it and approaches them, cackling to himself. Megumi looks around in a panic as Dingodile draws closer to the team, getting his lava gun ready as they huddle up and tremble with fear.

He towers above them and growls in a demonic voice, "Hope you varmints brought your two billion degree sunblock, 'cause I'm about to make toast out of you all!"

Before Dingodile can fry them, Megumi approaches from behind and hits him over the head with a crowbar she found lying on the ground, knocking him out cold.

"Oh, my goodness!" Megumi worriedly exclaims. "I am so sorry, Mr. Dingo!"

* * *

Time passes, and Dingodile, no longer under Apo-Apo's control, slowly comes to and sees Crash and his team looking over him.

"Wha—?" Dingodile groggily says as he comes to. "Where am I?"

"Dingodile, are you okay?" Coco asks him as she and the others help him up.

Dingodile snaps out of his daze and recognizes them, saying, "Oh, it's just you guys. What happened?"

"Well, you went crazy and almost broiled us alive." Coco snarks to him.

"Wait. I did?" Dingodile asks, confused. "I normally don't attempt to fry you unless Uka Uka and Cortex order me to."

"And I may have hit you in the head with a crowbar." Megumi sheepishly says, tossing the crowbar away. "Sorry."

"No, it's all good, cutie. I—" Dingodile replies before he suddenly remembers what happened to him earlier. He gasps in shock and continues, "That mask! It was that mask that caused me to go crazy!"

"Mask?" Megumi asks. "What mask?"

Dingodile approaches her and tells her, "Apo-Apo! It's dangerous! It can hypnotize people to do Pinstripe's evil bidding! He killed Aku Aku and Uka Uka to create that mask!"

"What?!" Coco exclaims as Crash gasps in shock.

"So that's why we haven't seen Aku Aku lately." Megumi says, concerned for her friends' safety.

"And it gets worse!" Dingodile continues. "He and Geary are holding N. Tropy and N. Brio prisoner at the battleship! Geary's taken control of N. Tropy's powers and has probably killed him at this point! Tropy's the only one who could be able to undo this mess!"

"Oh, no." Coco frightfully says as she paces around. "This... this is terrible! The one person who can undo this mess, and he's being held hostage, or worse, has been killed!"

"I know, right?" Dingodile replies as he and the others race back to their kart. "We gotta move, mates! As long as that mask is allied with Pinstripe and Geary, who knows what sinister plans hey have in store for us?"

"I don't know." Megumi says, mildly annoyed. "But we're not going to wait around here to find out."

"There you go, Megumi!" Coco excitedly tells her as everyone climbs aboard the kart. "You're getting there. That's the attitude we're looking for!"

"Why, thank you, sweetie!" Megumi cheerfully tells her while she smiles at her happily.

Coco sighs and snarks to herself, "And there goes the attitude."

"Let's hope Tawna's not suffering too much at the hands of that rat..." Dingodile tells himself as he starts the kart and drives Crash and the others up north towards the battleship.


	14. The Prisoners Send Help

Meanwhile, back at the battleship, Pinstripe is sitting at his throne with him and the Ratnicians enjoying a grand feast, consisting of plump, suckling rotisserie chicken with a passion fruit glaze, spinach cassarole, baked Alaska, and fine wine, prepared by Geary while N. Brio continues to work on the creature against his will as Apo-Apo eyes him down.

"Mmmm! This is exquisite!" Pinstripe exclaims as he eats the food Geary has prepared. "I didn't know you we're such a good cook, Geary!"

"Well, when you're a cleaning robot, you happen to pick up on a few things while you're cleaning house, such as the ability to cook for instance." Geary tells him.

Pinstripe prepares a plate of food and shouts to Tawna, "Tawna, my dear! Why don't you have some of this food? Don't want my future queen to go hungry, now do we?"

He gives the plate of food to a nearby Ratnician, who brings it over to Tawna, who has her ankle chained to a post and is wearing nothing but a slave dress. As she struggles to get free, she sees the Ratnician with a plate of food for her. She takes the plate, hits the Ratnician over the head with it and yells back at him, "I'd rather starve to death than spend another second around you, you monster!"

"Hmm. Suit yourself, my queen." Pinstripe says as he resumes eating.

"Stop calling me queen, for the love of Pete!" Tawna shouts to Pinstripe.

N. Brio meekishly approaches Pinstripe and Geary as they continue to eat.

"Uh... Pinstripe?" he asks, getting their attention.

Pinstripe groans and asks, "What do you want now, Brio?"

Brio mumbles, "It's... it's ready."

"Splendid! Let's see it!" Pinstripe shouts as he leaps out of his throne.

"Yes, sir." Brio says as he leads Pinstripe and Geary to the containment unit.

As N. Brio opens a viewing hatch on the containment unit, Pinstripe and Geary look inside and are pleased with what they see inside.

Geary exclaims, "Ahhh! This creature... I mean, it's... it's... it's a beast!"

"You said it, Geary!" Pinstripe says as he continues to look at the creature. "This monstrosity is sure to rip Crash to pieces! But, why isn't it moving?"

"Well, I'm still uploading its consciousness into the body." Brio tells the two of them.

"Ah. And exactly how long will that take?" Pinstripe asks as N. Brio looks at a nearby computer screen.

"Let's see here..." Brio says as he checks the status bar on the computer monitor. "Should be alive in another 24 hours."

"WHAT?! 24 HOURS?!" Geary shouts, startling him and even Pinstripe. "We want this wretched bandicoot dead now!"

"Calm yourself, Geary." Pinstripe says as he tries to calm Geary down. "There's no rush to kill that meddlesome rodent. After all, I've got his damsel in distress right here."

"Screw you, Pinstripe!" Tawna yells at Pinstripe, having overheard what he said.

Pinstripe, ignoring Tawna's insults, continues, "So, with her here, he'll come straight to us, then we can unleash that monster on him!"

Geary sighs in annoyance and says, "Okay, fine. I can wait another whole day." He then turns to Brio and tells him, "And you! This creature better not disappoint! You hear me?"

"Y-y-y-yes, sir." stutters Brio. "D-d-d-don't hurt me."

"And once that beast's done with Crash, we'll sic it on his friends, including our dear friend, Brio!" Pinstripe laughs menacingly.

"What?!" exclaims Brio, baffled with what Pinstripe just said. "But you promised to let me go once I finished creating this beast!"

Pinstripe approaches Brio and smugly tells him, "Oh... I did, didn't I? Well, guess what? I changed my mind, bub!"

"Y-y-y-you f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-fiend!" Brio angrily stutters.

Geary turns to Apo-Apo and asks, "Sheesh, everyone's been calling Pinstripe a fiend lately, haven't they?"

"You see, you helped me a great deal by providing the ultimate means by which to kill that runt, and thus, we don't need your help anymore." Pinstripe says to Brio. "Plain and simple."

"But to feed me to the very beast that you forced me to create?!" Brio exclaims to Pinstripe. "What is wrong with you?!"

"Whoo! You tell 'em, Brio!" Tawna happily yells, getting the attention of Geary.

"Silence, missy!" Geary shouts to Tawna, who sighs in annoyance and folds her arms.

Pinstripe snaps his fingers and shouts, "Titans!"

A group of Titans surround Brio, prompting him to cower in fear for what they'll do to him.

"Take him to the dungeon!" Pinstripe tells them. "Give him his own private cell."

The Titans growl in compliance, pick up Brio and carry him down to the dungeon.

"Hey! Put me down, you brutes!" Brio shouts as the Titans carry him away. "Tawna, do something!"

"I wish I could, Brio. I really wish I could." Tawna sighs to herself as she glances down at her ankle chain. Suddenly, Pinstripe grabs her by the arm as a Ratnician undoes her ankle chain.

"HEY!" Tawna shouts as Pinstripe pulls her in close.

"Come, my dear. There's no need to worry about your geeky scientist friend anymore!" Pinstripe lustfully says to Tawna. "We have him in good hands."

"'In good hands,' my foot!" Tawna yells at Pinstripe as she tries to free herself from his grasp. "You're going to kill him!"

"Maybe we will, maybe we won't." Pinstripe tells her as he tightens his grip so Tawna can't get away. "Depends on how well you cooperate with your king."

He starts to forcefully drag her away and, as Tawna whimpers in fear, says to her, "Come, my love! Let me show you to my chambers for the night! You'll need a good night's sleep with your new king after all!"

"No! You can't do this to me!" Tawna tearfully shouts as she's dragged away by Pinstripe. "Don't you know what chivalry is, you creep?! Crash is going to do you in for sure once he hears about this! Let me go!" Her cries fade out once the two of them leave the room.

* * *

Looking through a set of bars underneath Pinstripe's throne as Tawna is dragged off, Oxide, having been listening to the conversations going on, panics and turns to the prisoners in their cell.

"Oh, this is terrible!" Oxide moans as he turns to the other prisoners. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know, but whatever it is, we've got to do it and quick!" Big Norm exclaims as he addresses the rest of the prisoners in the cell with them. "I'm not about to become food for whatever that beast is, and neither are all these fine people locked up with us!"

Koala Kong grunts in agreement, followed by Baby T. roaring in agreement.

"You said it!" Krunk exclaims as Small Norm whistles and applauds.

"Papu Papu agree with mime!" Papu Papu exclaims with pride.

As they continue to converse, Gnasty Gnorc bangs on the prison bars with his hammer, getting their attention, and shouts, "Hey! Keep it down in there! I'm trying to practice my knitting!"

Everyone snickers before collapsing into hysterical laughter.

"Yes, yes. Laugh it up, you simpletons." Gnasty Gnorc snarks as he returns to his post and continues to knit a pink and purple sweater.

Big Norm turns to Oxide, clears his throat and says, "Now then, Oxide, do you have ideas on how we can help Crash's girlfriend and that scientist they plan on sacrificing?"

"Hmmm... give me a minute to think here." Oxide says as he paces around, thinking to himself. While this is happening, Krunk motions Papu Papu to follow him. The two of them approach the bars, where Krunk pulls out a small blowgun. Papu Papu's face lights up, prompting him to pull out some miniature knockout darts. He loads a dart into the blowgun and blows, launching the dart straight into Gnasty Gnorc's neck, who lightly groans in pain, before collapsing at his post unconscious. The two of them give a thumbs up to each other and high five.

As Oxide continues to pace the room and think, Small Norm, who was busy tending to Baby Crash and Baby Coco, approaches him and whistles for him, getting his attention

"Yes?" Oxide asks as he turns to Small Norm.

He then gestures to Oxide's fanny pack.

Oxide's face lights up as he exclaims, "Of course! My pocket-size drones! Why didn't I think to use them in the first place?"

He pulls out a drone, and turns to Gnasty Gnorc, who is still knocked out from the knockout dart fired at him. Oxide turns the drone on and activates the recording function. He then records a message.

"To whoever finds this drone, please come help us! We are in the dungeons of the battleship and we just heard that Pinstripe plans to unleash a creature of unspeakable torment that they forced our dear friend N. Brio to create once Crash arrives to free his girlfriend Tawna. I fear we may not have much time left, so it would be in your best interest to get here as soon as you possible can before it's too late and that creature is released! Please, hurry! Sincerely, Oxide."

He walks over to a nearby barred window and releases the drone, which flies south away from the battleship and into the desert.

"Godspeed, little drone. Godspeed." Big Norm says as he and the rest of the prisoners watch the drone head southbound.


	15. Starving for Some Food

Back with Team Pasadena, Pasadena continues to pace back and forth underneath the desert sun, looking out for help. As she sweats from the extreme heat, she is prompted to remove her scarf and her jacket, followed by her rolling up the legs of her pants to make makeshift shorts to let some of the heat off as she wipes the sweat from her forehead. Moments later, her stomach growls.

"Hmm. Gettin' kind of hungry." She says to herself, before turning to the rest of her team and asking, "How 'bout you three? Y'all gettin' hungry over there?"

She sees Von Clutch, N. Trance and Fake Crash all lying on their backs, their stomachs rumbling louder than hers and the three of them moaning. "Boy, that was a stupid question." Pasadena snarks to herself.

"So... hungry..." Von Clutch moans. "Must... eat... something..."

"I'm getting over easy..." N. Trance moans as he bakes in the sun, followed by Fake Crash moaning similarly to him and Von Clutch.

Pasadena sighs in annoyance and says to the three of them, "Will you all please quit the dramatics here? It's only been three hours."

The three of them sluggishly get up and, having gone days without food or water, start to hallucinate, viewing each other as food. Fake Crash slobbers and mumbles gibberish as he views Von Clutch as a basted turkey with a side of mashed potatoes and gravy.

"Egg salad..." Von Clutch moans as he views N. Trance as an egg salad sandwich, hold the mayo.

"Bandicoot burgers..." N. Trance moans as he views Fake Crash as a pile of hamburgers.

Suddenly, without warning, the three of them leap up, teeth brandished and tongues slobbering, ready to eat one another alive.

"Guys, stop!" Pasadena groans in annoyance. "Don't turn on each other like this! I thought we were supposed to be working with one another, not eating one another!"

"Hide, Pasadena!" Von Clutch warns as he gestures her to go and hide behind their kart. "You don't want to be in our way when we go insane and eat each other!"

Pasadena sighs in annoyance and says to herself as she starts to remove her helmet and boots, "Wish I had me a cattle prod to zap these clowns back to reality..."

Von Clutch, N. Trance and Fake Crash all pounce on one another, forming a cartoon fight cloud as they attempt to eat one another, biting and clawing each other making various sounds of pain. Moments later, Pasadena throws her boots and her helmet, each one hitting the three team members clean across the head. They immediately stop fighting and turn to Pasadena.

"Are y'all finished?" Pasadena asks, unamused with her arms folded.

The three of them get up and approach Pasadena. N. Trance rubs the back of his head and grumbles, "Sorry about that." before chuckling nervously.

"You three ought to be ashamed of yourselves!" Pasadena says with concern as she scolds them. "Threatening to eat each other alive like that!"

"Please forgive us, Pasadena." Von Clutch tells her. "We honestly have no idea what came over us just now."

"But I'm so darn hungry!" N. Trance whines as he stamps around like a child throwing a tantrum. "I want to eat something! Anything!"

"How ironic." Von Clutch snarks. "A sentient egg that wants to eat." Fake Crash chortles before Pasadena throws her jacket at him, getting his attention.

"So, rather than searching for food, you three decide to turn on each other just like that?" Pasadena continues to scold. "You all are better than this!"

"You're right!" N. Trance groans as he clasps his hands on his head. "What kind of animals have we become? Metaphorically speaking."

"Boy, this apocalypse really has changed us all, hasn't it?" Von Clutch asks, dejected as Fake Crash nods in agreement.

Suddenly, they all hear a voice all out from behind them, "Howdy, strangers! Need a lift?"

Pasadena and her team spin around to discover that Yaya, Chick and Stew have found them. Chick and Stew motion them to climb aboard.

"Yaya!" Pasadena exclaims happily as they approach Yaya, Chick and Stew in their kart. "Boy, are we glad to see you, cutie!"

"And not a moment too soon!" Von Clutch says as they climb aboard their kart. "We were about to become cannibals!"

"Wait. You're not going to turn savage and eat us, are you?" Stew asks fearfully as he grabs onto Chick.

Yaya clears her throat and tells him and Chick, "Guys. Do you remember the talk we had earlier?"

Stew pauses and then, remembering their conversation from earlier, says with confidence and determination, "Then again, why should we all have to resort to eating each other? If we keep going, I'm sure we'll find plenty of food to eat!"

As Yaya starts the kart and continues driving north, N. Trance says, "Let's hope so. I don't want anyone making an egg salad sandwich out of me..."

As the sun begins to set in the west, N. Trance hears the sound of Fake Crash licking his lips, followed by a loud clang. "Knock it off, hipster!" N. Trance shouts in annoyance.


	16. Lonely Bandicoots

Later in the evening, over with Crash's team, their kart has run out of gas, forcing the team to slowly push the kart through a toxic, slime-covered swamp. Likewise, the kart is also covered with slime, as they were ambushed by a horde of Sludge titans not too long ago, which Dingodile thankfully warded off with his combination chainsaw and lava gun.

"Boy, that was a pretty nasty attack we had back there, wasn't it guys?" Dingodile asks the team as they continue to push the kart through the swamp.

"Yeah." Megumi tells him. "It's a good thing you were armed, or else, we would've been dinner for those gross Titans."

"Wait a second." Coco says, getting everyone's attention as she looks out in the distance. "Is that...?"

Everyone then looks out and eventually spots what Coco was looking at: the ruins of the bandicoot house on N. Sanity Beach.

"Guys, look!" Megumi exclaims, pointing and gesturing towards the house. "It's our house!"

"Or what's left of it anyway..." Coco mumbles as they slowly approach the house, fearful that there could be Titans hiding inside. "Dingodile, would you mind checking the inside of the house for any threats before we head inside?"

"Certainly, Coco." Dingodile tells her as he approaches the house. He opens the front door, which comes off its hinges and falls to the ground, and looks inside to see if there are any Titans waiting to ambush them.

"All clear!" Dingodile calls out as he motions everyone to come inside. "Come on in!"

As the team heads inside the ruins of the house, Dingodile turns to Crash and asks him, "Crash, do you guys have a pantry or cellar somewhere here?"

Crash nods in approval with a "Mm-hmm," prompting Dingodile to tell him, "Good! You and Megumi go down and gather up any rations you may have. We'll need them not just for us, but for everyone else when we reunite with them later."

"Got it!" Megumi exclaims as she motions Crash to follow her. "Come on, Crash! Grab some backpacks. We're going to need a lot of food for our friends!" With that, the two of them head down to the cellar to stock up on food as Zam stands guard at the front door for any intruders that come their way.

* * *

Sometime later, Crash and Megumi emerge from the cellar with a backpack full of canned food.

"We're back, and we got lots of food!" Megumi happily exclaims as she and Crash approach Coco, Dingodile, Pura and Zam. Crash and Megumi's glee quickly dissipates when the two of them see Coco sulking to herself, with Dingodile and Pura attempting to comfort her.

"Coco, what's wrong?" Megumi solemnly asks as she and Crash approach Coco.

She sighs and vents to the team, "I really hope Isabella and her team are doing okay out there. I really don't want to lose another mother figure, not after we lost our own mother years ago. And Aku Aku's most likely dead, considering that Pinstripe used his and Uka Uka's magic to create that new evil mask. Being without a parental figure in this post-apocalyptic mess is absolutely terrible! I think I'm going to cry..."

Coco starts to tear up, but quickly stops when Crash rests his hand on her shoulder, giving her a warm smile of brotherly love.

"Aww, that's right. I almost forgot! I have you to look out for me, Crash!" Coco happily says as she gives Crash a sisterly hug. "Isabella may not be here to comfort me, but at least you're here, even if you're not the brightest bulb in the bunch."

"Oh! Speaking of Isabella..." Megumi says as her face lights up, before pulling out an envelope addressed to Coco. "Coco, Issy wanted me to give you this in the event that the two of you got separated."

"Really?" Coco asks as Megumi gives her the envelope. "What is it?"

"Well, open it and find out." Megumi tells her. Coco then opens the envelope and discovers that inside is a letter penned by Isabella:

* * *

_For my dear, sweet Coco,_

_If you are reading this, then it means that we got separated on our journey to rescue Tawna and stop Pinstripe and that robot. I know that you and Crash are alone and most likely terrified of what might happen to either one of us, but I just want you to know that I am not about to see you give up in a time like this. You and Crash can pull through this even if we're miles apart from each other, unsure of when we'll ever get back together. I love you like you were my own daughter, and nothing and no one can ever replace you with receiving all my motherly love. You and Crash take care of yourselves out here, keep fighting the good fight, and most importantly, never give up. I'll be waiting for you at the battleship when you get there._

_Sincerely, your loving mother figure, Isabella._

* * *

"Aww, that is so sweet of her, Megumi." Coco happily says with a warm, content smile on her face.

"You see?" Megumi tells her as she rests her hand on her back. "Isabella would never want you to give up, and I'm sure you already know that."

"You're right, Megumi." Coco tells her. "I'm just worried sick about her and her team, that's all."

"Well, wherever they are, I'm sure they're doing just fine." Dingodile says as he lets out a yawn. "Now let's try to get some sleep. We had a long, stressful day today."

"Sounds good." Coco says before letting out a yawn as everyone curls up to go to sleep. "Good night, you guys."

* * *

Meanwhile, over with Isabella's team, Ripper Roo and King Chicken begin to settle in for the night. Tiny, worried sick about Isabella, who stormed off from her team after having a stress-induced meltdown earlier that day, paces back and forth with Polar following close behind him. He turns to Hasty, who is still upset from Isabella yelling and taking her anger out at him earlier, but is still busy repairing their kart.

"Any sign of tall blonde bandicoot, Hasty?" Tiny asks him, concerned.

Hasty, still upset and heartbroken from being yelled at earlier, sighs and says to Tiny, "No, unfortunately not."

Tiny groans in concern and continues pacing, until he hears faint wailing not too far from them, getting his attention. Tiny looks out and sees Isabella in the distance sitting on a rock and crying her eyes out. Knowing that Isabella needs someone to comfort her, Tiny turns to Polar, nudges him and motions him to go comfort Isabella. Polar nods and starts walking out towards Isabella as Tiny watches.

* * *

As Polar approaches Isabella, he looks up and sees that she is still sobbing. He gently rests his paw on her knee, startling Isabella, who reacts in shock, prompting Polar to whine and cower in fear.

Isabella sniffs, wipes tears away from her eyes and says, "Oh. It's just you, Polar."

She sees that Polar is still cowering in fear, worried that she might yell at him for no reason like she did earlier.

Realizing that he's still shaken after being yelled at earlier, Isabella tells him, "No, no, no. It's okay. Don't be frightened. I didn't mean to scare you."

She rests her hand on the rock and motions for Polar to join her. Polar gets up, climbs onto the rock and rests his head next to Isabella.

As she rubs Polar's head, she says to him, "Aw, Polar... I didn't mean to snap at you all earlier. I... I just really miss everyone and can't handle all this stress that's been brought upon me from this doomsday fiasco."

Polar glances up at Isabella.

"Look, I know Hasty is a real sweet moose and he was just offering to help me, but it was not the best time for it." She tells him. "I never intended to yell at him like that. I can't bear to hurt anyone else's feelings like that."

She starts to tear up again and continues, with her voice breaking, "And... and... and I really don't want all my friends to get hurt, or worse, killed out here. I miss Crash, I miss Crunch, I miss Tawna, I miss the rest of my squad... Heck, I even miss characters like Dingodile and the Komodo brothers! But most of all... I... I..." She collapses into a sobbing heap. "I miss my dear sweet Coco!"

As Isabella continues sobbing, Polar solemnly looks out at the sunset. He then glances back at Isabella, worried for her well-being as she continues to cry a river. Suddenly, his face lights up, before he sits up and starts playfully licking Isabella's face to cheer her up. Isabella's sobs quickly turn into happy laughter as she says, "Okay, okay! You win, Polar! I'm feeling a lot better now."

She pulls Polar close to her as the two of them watch the sun set in the distance.

She sighs and says to Polar, "Thank you for cheering me up, Polar. You know what? First thing in the morning, I'm going to do right with my team."

Isabella yawns as Polar rests his head on her lap as the two of them drift off to sleep for the night.


	17. Brio's Escape

Later that night, in the battleship, Gnasty Gnorc is still knocked out from a tranquilizer dart that Papu Papu and Krunk launched at him earlier that day, allowing the prisoners to try and break out of their cell, but with no such luck.

Big Norm, who was attempting to dig through the wall with a spoon, quietly grumbles to himself and whispers, "Whose bright idea was it to not have a shovel or pickax stowed away?"

Oxide whispers back to him, "Well, don't look at me. Liz is the one with that kind of equipment!"

"Oh, if we had some of Ami's explosives, we'd be out of here in a heartbeat." Krunk whispers to him.

"Krunk, are you not forgetting that we'd wake up the entire Titan army if we used any explosives?" Oxide whispers back in response. He then sighs and continues, "Looks like we stuck in here until Crash and the others show up. It's going to take a miracle for that to happen, though..."

* * *

Meanwhile, as that's going on, Pinstripe and Tawna are lying in bed, with Tawna's clothes torn and thrown about the floor of Pinstripe's bed chambers, giving the heavy implication that Tawna was the victim of a sexual encounter from Pinstripe, who is fast asleep like a baby and has his arm wrapped around Tawna's shoulder.

As Tawna lies in bed with Pinstripe, wide awake and shaking with fear, she thinks to herself, "_That creep! First, he has his way with me against my will, and now he's going to feed poor Brio to the very creature that he was forced to create, whatever it is. I can't let that happen, not after all the suffering they put him through! I got to get him out of here tonight!_"

Tawna quietly removes Pinstripe's arm from her shoulder, places it on his chest, and slips out of bed completely naked. (No nudity is shown from her; only her bare upper back as she sneaks over to Pinstripe's wardrobe) She searches through his wardrobe and pulls out a pair of onesie undergarments and one of his signature green polo shirts. After getting dressed, she begins to quietly sneak out of his room, grabbing the keys to the dungeon as she leaves.

She opens the door to his bed chambers, looks around to see if there are any guards patrolling the halls, and quietly slips out once the coast is clear. She then follows the main stairwell of the ship down to the dungeon. As she descends, she quietly quips to herself, "Ugh! Why does this rat have to wear his underwear so tight?!"

* * *

Sneaking into the dungeon, she looks around for any sign of N. Brio, before noticing a door leading to a giant sacrificial pit. Taking the keys, she quietly unlocks the door and sneaks in.

"N. Brio...!" Tawna quietly whispers as she sneaks into the pit. "Are you in here?"

"Tawna!" N. Brio whispers, getting Tawna's attention. She spins around and sees Brio chained to the wall, before racing over to him as Brio continues, "You came to rescue me!"

Tawna grabs the keys and unlocks Brio's shackles, freeing him. She whispers to him, "You're darn right I came to rescue you! I'm not about to let those jerks murder you like this! Especially when the thing killing you is the very monster you were forced to create!"

"Oh, thank you!" Brio happily whispers to her as he gives her a hug. As they hug, Oxide, along with the other prisoners in the neighboring cell, looks through the bars of the door and sees them.

"Tawna! What are you doing?" Oxide whispers to the two of them, getting their attention. "Those brutes are going to throw you in here with us if they catch you!"

Tawna and Brio approach the cell door, with Tawna whispering to Oxide, "I know, but I'm not about to take that chance. I'm busting you all out right here, right now."

Oxide smiles and whispers to her, "Now I see why Crash loves you so much, my dear. You never give up on anyone."

"Aww, thank you." Tawna happily whispers to Oxide with a smile on her face. She grabs the keys, but fumbles and loudly drops them by accident.

"Shhh! Keep it down" Big Norm whispers to her as Tawna picks up the keys. "You don't want to wake up that big green buffoon guarding us!"

"Too late." Gnasty Gnorc loudly calls out. Everyone spins around and sees that Gnasty Gnorc has been woken up by the sound of the keys dropping. He pulls a lever, activating the alarm system.

"Aw, crap." Big Norm moans as Tawna drops the keys in fear.

"Go!" Oxide exclaims to Tawna and Brio. "You and Brio have to get out of here quick!"

"No! I'm not leaving without you guys!" Tawna exclaims.

"Don't worry about us. We're going to be fine!" Oxide reassures her, before he hears the sound of Titans approaching. "Now, go, before the guards catch you both!"

"Got it!" Tawna says as she grabs Brio by the hand, the two of them exiting through the way they came in.

Gnasty Gnorc notices the two of them darting towards the staircase, growls and turns to the prisoners, saying to them, "You all stay right where you are! I'll be back to teach you some manners!" He leaves and starts to chase after Tawna and Brio.

* * *

As the alarm continues to sound, Tawna and Brio have made their way to the uppermost level of the battleship. "Tawna! Which way do we go?" Brio frightfully asks Tawna.

Suddenly, the two of them hear distant roaring from down below. They look over the edge of the balcony and spot Gnasty Gnorc and an army of Titans charging up to the main level from the dungeon.

Tawna looks around and spots an exit, leading to the bow of the ship. "This way! Quickly, Brio!" she shouts as the two of them head for the exit. They get out and are stopped in their tracks as they reach the edge of the bow. Cornered, and seeing the Titan army approaching fast, Tawna frantically looks around for a way down before spotting a ladder next to Brio's feet. Likewise, she also spots a convenient box of rations and supplies. She grabs several bags and starts to pack whatever she can grab.

"Tawna, quickly! They're getting closer!" Brio fearfully exclaims to Tawna.

Tawna grabs the bags, hands them to Brio and points at the ladder, telling Brio, "Go! Hurry, Brio! You have to get out of here and find Crash!"

"But, aren't you coming, Tawna?" Brio asks as he climbs onto the ladder.

"I wish I could, but I can't." Tawna replies. "Pinstripe will have every Titan in his army after me if I dare escape!"

Suddenly, Tawna hears the Titans drawing closer and urges Brio, "Go! Hurry! Find Crash! If you can't find him, then find somebody, ANYBODY to come save me and our friends! Quickly! You're our only hope!"

"God bless you for saving me, Tawna." Brio says to Tawna as he starts to climb down the ladder. As Tawna prepares to move, Apo-Apo suddenly appears in front of her and growls with glowing red eyes. Tawna yelps and starts to dart back towards the entrance, before being approached by Geary, Gnasty Gnorc and a group of Titans.

"Little late for an evening stroll, eh, missy?" Geary says as he approaches Tawna.

"Uh... no." Tawna fearfully asks, her eyes darting around while Brio continues to climb down the ladder to safety. "Whatever do you mean?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were helping Brio escape, weren't you?!" Geary threatens. "You got some nerve!"

"I've got some nerve? _I'VE_ got some nerve?!" Tawna exclaims before she groans and continues, "What is your problem, robot? Why do you and Pinstripe have to constantly mistreat us like this? What did we ever do to you?"

"Oh, so you want to know the truth about why we did all this, do you?" Geary responds. "All right, then."

As Geary starts to reveal the truth to Tawna, Brio has made it to the bottom of the ladder. He prepares to get a firm foot on the ground and dismount, before hearing Tawna scream "_**WHAT?!**_" at the top of her lungs. This causes Brio to slip and fall flat on the ground. He shakes his head, looks up and says to himself, "Oh, that doesn't sound good."

Back on the bow of the ship, Tawna continues to shout to Geary, "**_THAT'S_ **why you nuked the earth?! Really?! That is so selfish of you two!"

"Selfish?" Geary asks. "Please, we're not the ones that are being selfish here! It's our turn to get what we rightfully deserve!" He snaps his fingers and points to Tawna. "Take her away!"

"But, wait. What about that little scientist?" Gnasty Gnorc asks Geary.

"Brio? Bah! What about him?" Geary replies. "He is of no use to us anymore! Take this filthy bandicoot to the dungeon! Our king will have a few words with her in the morning when we present the beast that Brio created!"

Gnasty Gnorc grabs Tawna and throws him over his shoulder, holding on to her so she can't get away. Geary continues, "And get her out of those clothes! If she's going to be a prisoner, she needs to be dressed up like one!"

As everyone returns to the inside of the ship, Tawna screams, "Oh, you people are such sexist pigs! Just you wait until Crash gets here!"

Brio, conflicted, ponders on what to do next, saying to himself, "Oh, poor Tawna. I hope she'll be okay..." He prepares to climb back up the ladder to help Tawna, before stopping himself, saying, "No! No, got to focus! Remember what Tawna told you. Go find help!"

He starts to head south away from the battleship, before looking back and saying to himself, "I hope you know what you're doing, Tawna, dear..." He proceeds to head into the desert under the inky black sky, determined to find any help he can before it's too late.


	18. The Next Morning

The next morning, as the sun rises over the desert plains, Isabella and Polar are still asleep on a boulder away from Isabella's team. Eventually, Isabella wakes up and realizing it's morning, leans down to Polar and taps on the head to wake him up.

"Wake up, sleepyhead." Isabella whispers to him.

As Polar wakes up, he looks up and sees Isabella smiling at him. He playfully licks her in the face as Isabella happily giggles.

"Come on, Polar." Isabella tells him as she gets on his back and they start to head south. "Let's make our way back to the others."

* * *

Back with the rest of Isabella's team, Ripper Roo is just waking up from his slumber, King Chicken casually wanders around, minding his own business, and Tiny paces around back and forth, worried sick because Hasty is nowhere to be found. As Tiny continues to pace back and forth, he eventually spots Isabella and Polar approaching from the north.

"Lady bandicoot! There you are!" Tiny exclaims as Isabella and Polar get closer to them. Tiny and the rest of the team approach her as he continues, "We were worried sick!"

"Don't worry, Tiny. I'm okay." Isabella says as she dismounts from Polar.

She then approaches the group and, with one hand rubbing her arm, remorsefully tells them, "Listen, everyone, I wanted to apologize for what happened yesterday. You all are not a ragtag bunch of circus clowns; I was just stressed out from all of this chaos and..."

"No, no. It's okay! Tiny and friends get it!" Tiny says as he walks up to her. "We know you miss Coco, and Tiny want you to know that all of us will get you back to her and stop that mean rat, no matter what!"

"Aw, thanks, Tiny!" Isabella says as she gives him a friendly hug, which Tiny does likewise, which turns into a group hug when Polar and Ripper Roo join in. Suddenly, noticing that Hasty is nowhere to be seen, Isabella stops and looks around.

"Wait a minute. Where's Hasty?" she asks, concerned. "He's not upset about yesterday, is he?"

Tiny, knowing what happened to Hasty, sighs and tells Isabella, "Tiny didn't want to have to do this, but... you need to have a look at this."

He walks over to their kart, grabs a letter from the dashboard and hands it to Isabella, which she takes and starts to read it aloud.

* * *

_Dear Isabella,_

_While you were out having an emotional episode, I took the time to fully repair the kart for you and your team. Now that that's out of the way, I feel it best that I head out on my own so that I won't slow you and your team of "dead weight clowns" any further. Wish I could keep trying to help you, but like you said yourself, it's time I went out and helped myself and only myself for a change. Good luck stopping that rat and rescuing Crash's girlfriend._

_Sincerely,_

_Hasty, the moose who helps out more than he should._

* * *

As Isabella finishes reading Hasty's letter, she gasps in shock and sadness, her face turning from concern to guilt and regret as she recalls the harsh words she said to Hasty yesterday after exploding from anger and stress. She solemnly asks Tiny, "You mean... he up and left... because of me? And the things I said to him?"

"Yes. Left the second he finished repairing the kart." Tiny sadly replies.

Isabella panics and says, "Oh, good God! What have I done?! If anything happens to him out there because of me, I'll never be able to forgive myself for it! I have to fix this!"

She gets on top of Polar and tells him, "Come on, Polar! We have to go out there and find him! Mush!"

Isabella and Polar ride out into the desert as Tiny fearfully calls out, "No, wait! Don't go, lady bandicoot! It's dangerous!"

* * *

Later, Isabella and Polar are still riding through the desert in the midst of a raging sandstorm, frantically searching for Hasty. Isabella, on the verge of tears from extreme guilt, keeps looking through a pair of binoculars for any sign of Hasty, but with no luck.

"See anything, Polar?" she asks, prompting Polar to shake his head. "Oh! Where could he be?! This is all my fault! I never should've yelled at him and hurt his feelings!" Isabella moans.

Suddenly, she hears faint roaring in the distance and tells Polar, "Come on, Polar! Mush!"

The two of them eventually make their way out of the sandstorm and, arriving at a large open sand dune, discover that the roar came from a Scorporilla Titan, roaming the dunes and constantly pounding the ground with its massive fists.

Isabella, frightened, asks herself, "What IS that thing?"

She looks over and gasps in horror as she sees Hasty lying on the ground nearby, unconscious and with multiple wounds from the Scorporilla.

"Go, Polar! Go!" Isabella yells as the two of them ride over to Hasty, getting the Scorporilla's attention. The two of them reach Hasty's side as Isabella dismounts from Polar and approaches Hasty, leaning next to him and looking over his wounds. "Oh no, Hasty. None of this would've happened if I hadn't snapped at you yesterday." Isabella moans to herself as she then tries to get Hasty to wake up.

"Hasty? Are you okay? Say something!" she shouts to him.

Polar barks in fear, getting Isabella's attention. She gasps in fear as she sees the Scorporilla approaching quickly.

"Hasty! Don't do this to me now! Please! _WAKE UP! **PLEASE!**_" Isabella screams as the Scorporilla gets closer.

Polar, seeing the Scorporilla inches away from them, growls at the beast, then curls up and starts to roll around, kicking up dust and disorienting the Scorporilla. The Scorporilla eventually regains its composure and prepares to squash Hasty and Isabella flat. Its roar gets Isabella's attention, prompting her to defend him and shout, "No! Leave him alone, you beast!"

Isabella draws out her katana and starts to lure the Scorporilla away from Hasty while Polar continues to roll around and kick up dust. Once they're far away enough from Hasty, Isabella begins to fight the Scorporilla, dodging the attacks from its fists and scorpion tail while trying to attack its flesh with her katana. During the fight, Isabella notices a weak spot on the Scorporilla's tail, close to where the tail meets its flesh, prompting her to make a dash towards it to try and attack it.

Noticing Isabella going for its weak spot, the Scorporilla throws a punch at her, sending her flying through the air and by Hasty's side. Her katana lands right next to her, accidentally slicing her on the shoulder. Isabella cries out in pain as the Scorporilla throws another punch at Polar, sending him flying to Isabella and Hasty. Polar, frightened, races over to the two of them and cowers behind them. Isabella looks up in fear as the Scorporilla draws closer to her, Polar and Hasty. The Scorporilla raises its fists and prepares to squash them flat while Isabella holds her hand to her shoulder, shaking in pain and fear.

Before the Scorporilla can kill them, though, Tiny shows up, roaring viciously and uses his claws to slice the Scorporilla in the face. Disoriented, the Scorporilla holds its face in pain as Tiny makes a direct attack on its weak spot, slicing its tail clean off. The Scorporilla cries out in pain as Tiny gets in front of the group, and lets out a vicious roar, forcing the Scorporilla to flee in fear. Tiny turns to the others.

"Is everyone okay?" Tiny asks, holding his hand out to Isabella.

"No, we're not okay." Isabella tells him as she's helped up. "Hasty's unconscious and badly wounded, and I got a pretty bad cut fighting that beast."

"Well, let Tiny take you back to the kart." He says as he lifts Hasty up and puts his arm around his shoulder. "Tiny has a first aid kit there for you all."

Isabella gets back on Polar, and they continue to converse as they make their way back to their kart.

"Wait, who's guarding the kart then?" Isabella asks him.

"Funny chicken king and blue kangaroo are." Tiny tells her.

"Oh, good." Isabella says, relived. "We'll all get healed, and then we'll pile into the kart and be on our way."

"Mmm... not exactly." Tiny says as he rubs the back of his neck. "Car battery is still charging. Won't be ready for at least 24 hours."

"What?!" Isabella exclaims in surprise. She sighs and, remembering what happened yesterday, says, "Deep breaths, Issy. Deep breaths. That'll give us time to heal at least... You know what, Tiny? I think I owe Hasty an apology once he wakes up."

"Yes, lady bandicoot. You sure do." Tiny says to her as they continue back to the kart.


	19. Brio Finds Help

Meanwhile, N. Brio wanders aimlessly through the desert, carrying all the food and supplies Tawna packed for him the night before when she helped him escape from captivity. Tired and on the brink of dehydration, he looks around for any sign of hope before spotting a flare going off in the distance.

Brio gasps and exclaims, "Survivors! I'm saved!" He darts to where the flare came from: Team Liz. As it turns out, Rilla Roo somehow got a hold of Nina's flare gun and fired it, much to Nina's annoyance.

"Must I keep telling you this, you foolish monkey? My flare gun is not a toy!" she says as she snatches it from Rilla Roo's hands.

Crunch, breathing heavily, gets down on his knees and moans, "I can't keep going on like this. Feels like it's been days since we've eaten."

"It's only been one night, sheesh." Liz scoffs.

"Hey! Over here!" Brio calls out in the distance, getting Nash's attention.

"Hey, did you hear something?" Nash asks, listening out, getting the attention of Liz and the others.

"Probably just a buzzard." Nina snarks.

"No, it sounded like a man." Nash says to her.

"What?" Liz asks as she looks out in the distance and sees Brio approaching them quickly.

"Why, look! It's N. Brio!" Liz says to the others before waving to Brio. "Brio! Hey! Over here!"

"Guys!" Brio exclaims as he runs up to Liz's team and gives Liz and Crunch a hug.

"Ugh, get a room, guys." Nina snarks.

"Nina! You're here, too!" Brio exclaims as he notices her. "Come on. Give your neglected scientist friend a hug!"

"Nah, I'm good." Nina says, trying to avoid receiving a hug. Brio gives her one anyway. Nina groans in annoyance before prying herself from Brio's hug.

"You mean to tell me you came here all the way from that battleship?" Crunch asks, bewildered.

"Yes. Tawna rescued me in the middle of the night." Brio tells him. "Oh, man. Crash will be so proud to hear that she rescued me from the jaws of death! I..."

Brio suddenly notices Rilla Roo sniffing at his luggage. He approaches him and shoos him away, saying, "Hey, you! Don't touch that! There's perishables in there!"

"Perishables?" Liz asks as her face lights up with glee. "You mean, you actually have food?"

"Yes, Tawna packed me some for the trip." Brio tells them.

"Oh, man! I'm starving!" Crunch exclaims.

"Where is it?" Nash asks excitedly.

Brio takes a piece of luggage and opens it, revealing food the size of an all-you-can-eat buffet.

"Here's the food." Brio says as he presents the food to the team. "You all can have it. I'm not hungry."

"Are you sure, Brio?" Liz asks, concerned.

"Positive." Brio says to her, upset from the suffering he had to endure over the past several days.

"Well, more for us, then!" Nina exclaims as she starts to eat.

"Hey, kid!" Crunch calls out as he approaches the food. "Didn't your uncle teach you some manners?"

As the two of them, Rilla Roo and Nash eat the food, Liz walks up to Brio, concerned for his well-being. Seeing that he's on the brink of dehydration, she hands him a canteen of water, which Brio takes. "Thanks, Liz." he says to her before taking a drink.

"Brio, what's wrong?" she asks him. "Did Pinstripe make you do something you didn't want to?"

"Oh, Liz, it's awful!" Brio moans. "Pinstripe and his goons are absolute nut jobs! They forced me to create a monster of unspeakable torment that they plan to unleash in just a few short hours!"

Upon hearing this, the team immediately stops eating and diverts their attention to Brio.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Crunch asks, puzzled.

"A monster!" Brio warns him. "They were going to feed me to it! Me! The one who created it! And Pinstripe also wants this creature to rip Crash apart before it kills all of us! And worst of all, he assaulted and abused poor Tawna and as if that weren't enough torment for her, he plans on making her his queen!"

"What?!" Liz shouts in fear and concern.

"That monster!" Nina shouts.

"I'll say!" Nash says as he storms up to Brio. "Why are we just now hearing about this creature, pencil neck? Why, I ought to—"

"No, Nash!" Liz says, grabbing his fin. "Brio's not the monster here. He's our friend."

"Yeah!" Crunch tells him. "If anyone's a monster, it's that blasted rat!"

"You... you really consider me your friend?" Brio asks, bewildered.

"Of course!" Liz reassures him. "You're with our team now, and we will do whatever it takes to keep you safe!"

"And don't you worry. Whatever this monster is, we'll stop it before it does any damage!" Crunch exclaims before he and the team stop and look out in absolute shock and fear.

"Aw, thanks, guys!" Brio says, unaware of the team's sudden change in reaction. "I don't know what I'd do without—"

He suddenly stops and sees them in their frozen state, prompting him to ask, "What?"

"Speaking of monsters..." Nina fearfully says as she turns Brio around to what they're looking at: a horde of Magmadon Titans staring them down and ready to burn them to a crisp.

"RUN!" Crunch shouts, prompting the team to make a run northbound. Before they can go any further though, they soon find themselves surrounded by more Titans, who enclose them in a circle.

"Where do all these Titans keep coming from?!" Nina shouts.

"It's Pinstripe's doing!" Brio shouts. "He has a whole army of these Titans, ready to stop us from stopping him!"

"Oh, what are we going to do?!" Nash cries out.

"Well, what about that missile launcher on your head there?" Nina asks him. "Use it!"

"I would if I could, but it's battery powered!" Nash says to her.

"So?" Nina asks, unamused.

"And the batteries are dead!" Nash groans as the Titans get closer to them. "We're sitting ducks here! We need a miracle to save us now!"

* * *

Meanwhile, not too far away, Yaya and Pasadena's teams continue to drive up north in one shared kart. Suddenly, Pasadena, looking around, is able to spot Liz's team from afar.

"Guys! Look!" Pasadena calls out, getting their attention as Yaya stops the kart. "Our friends!"

"_Mein Gott_! They'll be burnt like _sauerbraten_!" Von Clutch exclaims fearfully.

"What are we going to do?" Yaya asks Pasadena as they continue to look out.

Pasadena, looking around for a weapon to use on the Titans, suddenly glances at her long tail and gets an idea. "Quick! Yaya! Drive us over there!" she tells Yaya.

"WHAT?!" Yaya shouts.

"Trust me!" Pasadena reassures her. "I've got an idea on how I can save them! Just drive!"

"Okay..." Yaya says. "I hope you know what you're doing..."

She slams her foot on the gas petal and takes off towards the Magmadon army at high speeds, getting the attention of Liz's team.

"Guys, look!" Liz calls out as she directs their attention to the approaching kart. "It's our friends!"

"Our miracle has arrived!" Nash happily exclaims.

Yaya hits the brakes as Pasadena leaps out of the kart, darting towards the Titan horde.

"Be careful, _mein Fräulein_!" Von Clutch fearfully cries out.

Pasadena, continuing to run, grabs her tail and twirls it around like a lasso and uses it as a whip to attack the Titans, who back away from Liz's team and start to do battle with Pasadena, who continues to run around in circles and whip the Titans in their weak spots, causing them to collapse on the ground in pain.

"Whoo! Whip 'em good, lassie!" Stew excitedly cries out as Yaya happily cheers.

Pasadena attempts to whip the Magmadon horde leader, but its exterior is protected by an extra layer of lava, burning Pasadena's tail once it makes contact with it. She cries out in pain, flops down on the ground and holds her tail in pain. The teams gasp in fear. Fake Crash's face slowly turns from fear to rage.

The Magmadon horde leader turns to Pasadena and starts to advance on her, pinning her to the ground with its foot. As she struggles to remove the foot from her chest, the Magmadon prepares to spit molten lava all over her. She whimpers in fear before hearing Fake Crash shouting and charging towards the leader, getting its attention. He fires so much paint at it with his paintball gun that it douses the Magmadon's embers, leaving it defenseless as Fake Crash chucks an enormous boulder at it, knocking it back several feet. Frightened, the Magmadon calls for a full retreat as Fake Crash glares at it.

As the Titan horde flees north, Pasadena, breathing shakily, looks up at Fake Crash, with a look of determination on his face. Pasadena smiles and, thankful that Fake Crash just saved her life, grabs him by his ascot, pulls him in close and starts to make out with him. Stew, seeing that Yaya is looking on, covers her eyes, before Chick covers Stew's eyes as Pasadena throws her scarf, helmet and jacket aside. Stew groans, "Aw, Chick! You never get to let me see the good stuff!"

As the pair continues to make out, Pasadena giggles seductively and prepares to remove her tank top before a voice calls out, "Hold up there, lovebirds! Save that stuff for your private time!"

Everyone turns and sees that Ami and Cortex's team has caught up with them.


	20. Reunited, Mostly

"Ami!" Crunch exclaims as he runs up to her. "You're back!"

"Crunch, baby!" Ami exclaims, holding her arms out. Crunch grabs her, hugs her and spins around before the two of them share a kiss. "You know I'd never forget about you, sweetie." she continues as she boops him on the nose.

"Guys, you found us!" Liz happily exclaims as she runs up to Ami and gives her a hug. Cortex, N. Gin, Penta and the Komodo Bros. pile out of their kart and approach everyone else.

"So, looks like we're all here and accounted for." Pasadena says as she puts her helmet back on and grabs her jacket and scarf as she and Fake Crash get up from off the ground.

"Well, all except for Crash and Isabella's teams, and those who got captured." Von Clutch reminds her.

"Wait, ssssso you all haven't heard from Issssabella, either?" Komodo Joe asks Pasadena.

"No, unfortunately." Pasadena sighs. "I just hope they're doing okay, wherever they are."

Ami, dejected, thinks for a minute before saying, "Well, wherever she is, I'm sure that she and her team find their way to us eventually. Now, what do you say we keep going north, huh?"

"We can't." Liz tells her. "We have to wait for Crash and his team, remember?"

"Oh, yeah! I completely forgot about them!" Ami exclaims as she face palms.

"Please forgive her." Cortex says as he approaches Liz, Yaya and Pasadena's teams. "We spent most of our journey fighting Titans."

"And once Crash and his friends get here, we can bring the doom to that monster Pinstripe has in his possession!" N. Gin exclaims as he laughs crazily.

"Wait, how do you all know about the monster Brio created?" Liz asks Ami and her team.

Ami holds up the drone that Oxide sent out earlier and says to the group, "We got Oxide's message."

Brio gasps in fear, gets down on his knees and begs to Ami, "Please don't kill me! They forced me to do it against my will, I swear!"

Ami, puzzled, reassures him, "No! No, we're not going to kill you. We believe you."

"Yeah! If we're going to kill anyone, it's that rat!" Nina exclaims to Brio.

"And if anyone tries to do anymore harm to you after how much you've suffered, we've got your back!" Crunch reassures Brio, who smiles warmly.

* * *

Meanwhile, over with Isabella's team, she and the rest of her team are mending Hasty's wounds, who is still unconscious. Isabella, having tended to her shoulder injury from an earlier Scorporilla fight when she rescued Hasty, paces back and forth, fearing the worst for Hasty, as she's just starting to develop feelings for him. Suddenly, she and Tiny hear the sound of static coming from their kart.

"Lady bandicoot!" Tiny calls out to Isabella. "Power's back on!"

"Really?" Isabella asks as she darts over to the kart as Ripper Roo and Polar continue to mend for Hasty.

"Well, not all of it. Only the radio's working." Tiny tells her. "Car battery still needs more time to charge."

She takes the radio, turns it on and speaks into it. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

* * *

From the other teams' end, they suddenly hear Isabella's voice through their radios, causing their faces to light up with surprise.

"_Guys?_" Isabella says through the radio. "_Hello?_"

"Isabella?" Ami asks as she speaks into her radio. "Is that you?"

"_Ami!_" Isabella happily exclaims through the radio. "_Yes, it's me! How are you guys doing? Is everyone there?_"

"Yep, we're all here together!" Ami says to her. "Well, most of us, anyway..."

"_So tell me, where are you all?_" Isabella asks through the radio.

"Well, I feel like we're getting closer to the battleship and Pinstripe." Ami says to Isabella before happily laughing, "Man, oh, man! It's been one heck of a ride for me and my team! We had so much fun tearing through hordes and hordes of Titans!"

"_Well, glad you had fun._" Isabella snarks through the radio. "_Me and my team almost got _eaten _by a Titan._"

"Oh, man. That's rough." Ami says, concerned. "Well, how's the rest of your team holding up?"

"_It's a long story, Ami._" Isabella says to her through the radio. "_You see..._"

"Hold the phone, Isabella." Ami tells her, looking out into the distance. "I think Crash and his team are heading towards us right now."

From her perspective, she sees Crash and his team pulling their kart up to everyone.

"Hello, everybody!" Megumi calls out.

"Guys!" Coco exclaims as she and Crash leap out of the kart.

"Crash! Coco! You're back!" Crunch calls out to them. "Give your main man Crunch a hug!"

Crash and Coco race towards Crunch and give him a hug. As Dingodile, Pura, Megumi and Zam pile out of the kart and approach the rest of the teams, Coco stops and looks around.

"Wait, where's Isabella's team?" Coco worriedly asks. "We all should've been here together."

"Well, she's right here if you want to talk to her." Ami tells her as she hands her the radio.

"_Coco?! Is that you?!_" Isabella excitedly asks through the radio.

"Isabella?!" Coco exclaims as she takes the radio from Ami. "YES! It's me!"

"_COCO!_" Isabella squeals through the radio. "_Oh, I thought I'd never hear your sweet voice again! Are you okay?_"

"Yes, I'm fine, Isabella. I'm fine." Coco happily reassures her, calming down from her excitement. "Are you okay? Where are you guys?"

"_Well, we made it to the battleship, but unfortunately, we're stranded._" Isabella tells her through the radio.

"Stranded?" Coco asks. "What do you mean?"

"_Well, our car battery's dead and is still charging._" Isabella says through the radio. "_We can't walk to the battleship because the path leading to it is hazardous. And on top of that, Hasty's been wounded by a Titan, and we're busy mending his wounds. So, I don't know when we'll be able to get back together with you all._"

"Oh, dear." Megumi says to herself before saying to Isabella, "Well, here's hoping Hasty makes a full recovery before tomorrow!"

"_Megumi! You're there, too!_" Isabella exclaims through the radio.

"Yes, and Crash, Cortex and everyone else!" Megumi says to her.

"_Well, I'm glad to hear that everyone's all together and doing well!_" Isabella tells her through the radio. "_And don't you guys worry. As soon as Hasty's feeling better, we'll make our way to the rest of you as soon as we possibly can!_"

"Sounds great!" Coco happily exclaims. "Take care, Isabella! I hope to see you soon!"

"_You take care of yourself as well, Coco dear!_" Isabella tells her through the radio. "_And never forget: I love you and I _will _see you soon! Nothing or no one's going to change that! Good luck!_" Coco warmly smiles as the two of them hang up.

"Hey! You guys!" Pasadena calls out, getting everyone's attention as she stands next to the drone Oxide sent out earlier. "We gotta keep movin'! This here drone says we're getting close to the battleship!"

"Great! Well then, let's get a move on!" Cortex exclaims as he motions everyone to keep moving. "The sooner we stop Pinstripe, the sooner we can rescue Tawna so she can be by Crash's side again!"

Crash exclaims, "Woo-hoo!" as he runs up to Cortex and gives him a hug.

"No— Crash! That doesn't mean give me a hug!" Cortex groans as he pries Crash off of him.

As everyone begins to follow the drone northbound, Ami stops and sees N. Brio hyperventilating.

"Brio, what's wrong?" she asks as she approaches him.

"I... I... I'm not s-s-sure if you all are ready to face this beast." Brio fearfully tells her as he worriedly rubs his arms. "I mean, it's... it's huge! Vicious! Its claws can slice you to ribbons! Its breath stinks of garlic and watermelon soda! It—"

Ami rests her hands on Brio's shoulders and says to him, "Brio! Calm down! Now, listen to me carefully. What sort of monster are we dealing with exactly?"

Brio inhales sharply and says, "Well..."


	21. Introducing Megamix!

Meanwhile, back at the battleship, Pinstripe, Geary and the Titan army have all gathered around the sacrificial pit that Brio was locked up in earlier. As the Titans roar and chant, Geary has just broken the news to Pinstripe of Tawna's actions from the night before.

"What?!" Pinstripe shouts. "What do you mean she helped Brio escape?!"

"It's true, sir! In the middle of the night!" Geary tells him. "Didn't you hear the alarms going off?"

"Of course not!" Pinstripe tells him. "I'm a heavy sleeper."

"Huh. I did not know that." Geary says, bewildered.

Tawna, back in her slave dress from earlier, is then led into the room with Gnasty Gnorc trailing right behind her to make sure she doesn't try to escape. Pinstripe sees her coming in, glaring at him.

"Well, let me get through this ceremony and we'll deal with it later." Pinstripe tells Geary as he stands up and clears his throat, before shouting to the crowd of Titans, "Greetings, my loyal subjects! The time has come to unveil a creature of unspeakable fear and torment!"

Suddenly, the ground below them begins to shake as a massive cell door is opened and the creature starts to enter the pit.

Pinstripe continues, "A creature that will no doubt lay waste to all that stand in its way and crush that miserable bandicoot Crash once and for all! Ladies and gentlemen, Titans and minions, I give you... Megamix!"

Megamix, a horrifying combination of Cortex, N. Gin, Tiny and Dingodile, stomps its way into the pit and roars loudly. The crowd of Titans cheers as Megamix roars, "I'll crush you all like bugs!"

Tawna gasps in fear and says to herself, "Oh, my lord! What IS that thing?!"

"It's glorious, that's what it is." Gnasty Gnorc tells her. "And be quiet! Your king is talking!"

Pinstripe continues, "Created from the flesh of our soon-to-be-departed friends, Megamix will mercilessly rip Crash and his friends limb from limb! With them out of the way, there will be no one to stop me from making Tawna my queen and undo my tyrannical reign!"

As the crowd continues to cheer, Megamix roars to Pinstripe, "I'm— WE'RE hungry! We demand something to eat, _tout suite_!"

"Ah, yes. I almost forgot." Pinstripe says as a small box is lowered above Megamix via a rope pulley. "Since Megamix just came to life, we'll need to sacrifice a living creature to this monster."

"You're wrong, Pinstripe!" Tawna shouts. "That's no monster; you are!"

"Be quiet!" Gnasty Gnorc shouts to her as Geary points N. Tropy's staff at her.

"Not another word, or I'll rinse out your mouth with laundry detergent!" Geary threatens.

Pinstripe, ignoring Tawna's words, continues with his speech. "You see, we were going to sacrifice our good friend, N. Brio, to this creature, but since he escaped in the middle of the night, we'll have to feed Megamix something else instead."

The rope holding up the small box is slowly burnt by a small blowtorch attached to the pulley as Pinstripe finishes up his speech. "Luckily, we found some pint-sized treats we can feed it."

"Wait!" Tawna says fearfully as she notices the box moving around. "If you're not feeding it Brio, then what exactly is in that crate...?"

Suddenly, out of the crate pops up Baby Crash and Baby Coco. Tawna gasps in shock and horror and, with a look of pure fear on her face, screams, "NO!" getting Pinstripe's attention.

She punches Gnasty Gnorc, and attempts to dart towards the babies, before Geary blocks her path, shouting, "Stay where you are, you filthy thing!"

"Out of my way, vacuum cleaner!" Tawna shouts as she hits Geary over the head with N. Tropy's staff. She tosses it aside and gets closer to the pit, before Pinstripe blocks her path.

"Hey!" he shouts as Tawna frantically looks around. "Your breakin' the rules! Don't act unless your king tells you to!"

Tawna grabs a garbage can and shouts, "Move aside, sewer rat!" as she throws the garbage can at Pinstripe, knocking him back. He almost falls into the pit, before saving himself by grabbing onto the ledge. The garbage can lands atop of Megamix, getting its attention as it watches Tawna climb out onto the ledge, grabbing onto a rope nearby.

"Stop clowning around!" Megamix roars. "I w— WE want our dinner! NOW!"

Megamix's roaring gets the babies' attention, who start to whimper and cry when they see Megamix snarling below them. Tawna, holding onto her rope, looks on in fear as the rope holding their crate up gets dangerously close to breaking.

"Hold on, babies!" Tawna shouts. "Mama Tawna's coming for you!"

Tawna, holding onto her rope, leaps out just as the rope holding the babies' crate up breaks. She just barely manages to catch the babies and swings back to the ledge and to safety as the crate lands atop Megamix, giving him a cartoon bump on his head.

Geary and Gnasty Gnorc look into the pit and see Megamix groaning and beginning to reluctantly eat the garbage scattered across the floor of the pit.

"Huh. I guess we're sacrificing garbage to this creature?" Gnasty Gnorc asks Geary.

"Ugh! So unsanitary!" Geary exclaims in disgust.

"Uh, a little help here!" Pinstripe shouts as he continues to hang from the ledge, getting Geary and Gnasty Gnorc's attention.

"Hold on, my king!" Geary says as he and Gnasty approach Pinstripe. "Let us help you up here."

The two of them grab onto Pinstripe's arms and hoist him up to safety. "Thanks, guys." Pinstripe says to the two of them.

Suddenly, he hears the sound of the babies crying, getting his attention as he sees Tawna comforting them. He glares at her with pure rage and fury as Tawna attempts to calm the babies down.

She says to the babies, "Shhh. It's okay, babies. I won't let that mean, stinky rat hurt you. Mama Tawna's here." She continues to shush the babies' crying before humming a lullaby to them, calming the babies down as they drift off to sleep while Tawna warmly smiles at them.

Suddenly, Gnasty Gnorc storms up to Tawna and snatches the babies from her hands, who start to cry more.

"Hey!" Tawna shouts. "Let them go!"

As Tawna approaches Gnasty Gnorc, she is frozen in her tracks by Geary, who uses N. Tropy's staff on her to freeze her in place. She is then lifted and dropped in front of Pinstripe, who is so pissed that's he's ready to bust an artery.

"Man, I got to get me one of these!" Geary happily exclaims. "Only had it for about a week and I am loving it!"

Pinstripe growls at Tawna through clinched teeth, "_That's. It._ You've really crossed the line this time, Tawna, my pretty. Refusing to be my queen is one thing, but attempted murder of your king? Oh, you are _so_ going to regret that! Apo! Titans!"

Apo-Apo emerges from the shadows as several Ratnicians and Titans enter the room and surround Tawna.

He turns to Gnasty Gnorc and tells him, "First off... Gnasty! Take those babies back to the dungeon!"

"Yes, sir, your highness!" Gnasty says to him.

Pinstripe turns back to Tawna as Gnasty leaves the room with the babies, who continue to cry. He storms up to Tawna, who backs away slowly in fear as Pinstripe growls, "And as for you, my pretty, if you're not going to be my queen willingly, then we're just going to have to force you to be my queen, whether you like it or not!"

A pair of Ratnicians grab Tawna by her arms and legs, preventing her from leaving as a Snipe Titan holds her eyelids open and forces her to look directly at Apo-Apo, who slowly approaches her with glowing red eyes. Geary aims N. Tropy's staff towards Tawna and snarls at her, "Don't even think about trying to run, lassie."

"No more Mr. Nice Guy!" Pinstripe roars. "Fire away, Apo!"

"No! _NO!_ **_NOOOOOOO!_**" Tawna screams as Apo-Apo places her under another hypnotic spell with glowing red eyes.


	22. Setting Up Camp

Later that evening, as the sun slowly sets, the teams are busy making their trek up north towards the battleship as the desert landscape around them becomes more and more industrial the closer they get.

"Are we there yet?" N. Trance asks, breathing heavily.

"Not yet." Dingodile replies, wiping sweat off of his forehead.

"Wait a second..." N. Brio says as he looks around. "This area looks familiar..."

Upon hearing his words, everyone looks up and sees that they have walked right into a large yard of oil drums, with Pinstripe's insignia plastered all throughout.

Coco gasps and exclaims in excitement, "We must be getting closer, you guys!"

"Can you feel the suspense in the air, Stew?" Chick asks. "The final battle is nigh!"

"You said it, Chick!" Stew exclaims. "I'm about ready to make omelets out of those foolish Titans!"

"Not the time for witty commentary, guys." Ami tells them.

N. Gin gasps and exclaims, "Guys! Look!" getting everyone's attention.

Finally, after spending hours upon hours of walking, the teams eventually arrive at the battleship.

"It's the battleship! We made it!" Cortex exclaims.

"You see that, guys? We actually did it." Coco happily says.

Pasadena turns to Crash and says to him, "Come on, Crash! What do you say we go in there and save your girlfriend, huh?"

Crash happy cheers as Coco asks, "What are we waiting for, everyone? Let's teach that rat a lesson!"

Everyone starts to charge towards the battleship before they are stopped in their tracks by Ami and Crunch.

"Hold on! Hit the brakes, everyone!" Ami says as everyone comes to a stop.

"Why? What's wrong?" asks Cortex, confused.

"We may have overlooked one small detail." Crunch says, gesturing towards the battleship.

Everyone looks out and sees that the battleship is surrounded by Titans of all shapes and sizes guarding the perimeter. Not to mention the hazardous obstacle course below them, filled with paintball mines, scorpions and fiery oil drums.

"Well, looks like we're up a creek without a paddle here." Coco says.

"What do you mean 'up a creek?'" Nash asks. "Let's just do what we did last time!"

"Yeah! Get out our weaponssss and powerssss and tear thessse Titansss a new one!" Komodo Moe says.

"Well, we could, but they easily outnumber us by at least two or maybe three hundred." Megumi tells him.

"Yeah. They could easily rip us apart if we even attempted to challenge them!" Nina adds.

Everyone then turns and sees the sun setting over in the west.

Megumi continues, "And besides, it's getting late, anyways. We need our rest."

"And I heard that these Titans are at their most active, and most vicious, at night when they detect intruders." Cortex warns the others.

"Wait, guys." Yaya says, looking out at a small island nearby. "There's a small island we can take shelter at. Underneath that oil rig!"

"Well, I guess that'll be safe enough." Coco murmurs to herself before turning to the rest of the group and telling them, "Well, looks like we'll have to camp over there for the night, everyone."

Everyone murmurs and nods in agreement as Coco continues, "Everyone! Find a group to camp with and get some shut eye! We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow."

"And most importantly, keep it down!" Ami tells everyone. "We don't want any Titans coming after us."

As everyone crosses a bridge to the oil rig and starts to set up camp, Pasadena takes Fake Crash by the hand and says to him seductively, "Come on, cutie! You're bunkin' with me tonight. We'll be gettin' real close to each other, if you know what I mean."

Fake Crash, catching on, giggles happily before Coco says to the two of them, "Well, if you're going to do... whatever it is you plan on doing, please try to be quiet, okay?"

After setting up his campsite, Crash sees Coco approaching him and gestures towards her own personal sleeping bag.

"Thanks for setting up our campsite, big brother." Coco happily says as she sits down next to Crash. She then sighs and tells Crash, "Just think, Crash, by this time tomorrow, we'll have rescued Tawna, defeated that rat and that robot, and most importantly, we will have done it together, as a team."

Crash smiles contently before his face lights up, as he just remembered something from earlier. As he gets up and starts to rummage through their belongings, Coco asks, "Crash? What're you looking for, big brother?"

Crash then pulls out the backpack full of food that they had packed when they sought shelter at the ruins of their house the other day.

Coco gasps in delight, as she had completely forgotten about the food earlier. "Of course! The food! I knew you wouldn't forget about something important as that, big bro!"

Coco then gets up, grabs a tin can and a wooden stick, and bangs the stick on the can, getting everyone's attention as she calls out, "Everyone! I hope you're all hungry!"

Crash then joins Coco by her side, presenting the backpack full of food as Coco continues, "Because me and Crash here have enough rations to last for a good while!"

Everyone's faces light up with happiness and excitement as they lay eyes on the food Crash has in the pack. "What are we waiting for, guys?" N. Gin exclaims in excitement. "Let's eat!"

Everyone then charges towards Crash and Coco, with drooling mouths ready to get some food. However, Crunch blocks their path so they won't trample Crash and Coco and tells the group, "Hold up, guys. Just because we haven't eaten in days doesn't mean we have to act like savages and rip each other apart to get some."

"Yeah." Megumi adds. "Why don't we all form a queue so that way everyone gets their fair share of food?"

After a brief moment of pondering, everyone nods and agress with Von Clutch saying, "Yeah, I guess zat would be ze sensible thing to do."

As the group queues up and starts to receive food from Crash and Coco, something catches Crash's attention: N. Brio looking out towards the battleship alone. Curious, he gets up and approaches Brio, getting the attention of Liz and Dingodile, who start to follow him.

Crash, approaching Brio, says something to him through curious gibberish.

"Oh, hi, Crash." Brio says as he sees Crash, Liz and Dingodile approaching him.

"Aren't you coming to eat and sleep with us?" Liz asks, concerned.

"You all go ahead." Brio says to them. "I'll keep watch throughout the night."

"No need to do that, mate." Dingodile tells him. "You've suffered enough."

"Yeah, why don't you come sleep with us?" Liz asks him. "We'll make you feel right at home."

"Really? Thanks, guys!" Brio exclaims.

"You get your sleep, Brio. I'll keep watch." Dingodile says as he takes Brio's place. "At least I'm armed."

"Ah. Good point. Well, good night." Brio says.

"Come on, Crash!" Coco says, calling him back to their campsite.

Crash, Brio and Liz head back towards the others while Dingodile stands over the horizon keeping watch on the others.


	23. Isabella's Apology

Later that night, all the teams are fast asleep. Over with Isabella's team, as Polar, Ripper Roo and King Chicken are sound asleep, Tiny keeps an eye on Hasty, who is still unconscious from being attacked and wounded by a Scorporilla Titan earlier that morning. As he continues to pace, he hears faint moaning from behind him. He spins around and sees Hasty slowly waking up from his unconscious state. He sees Tiny and groggily asks him, "Tiny? W-what happened? Where am I?"

While this is going on, Isabella sits away from the group on a small boulder looking up at the night sky. She sighs to herself and pulls out a small pocketbook with photos of her and Coco happily frolicking and playing together like a mother and daughter would. As she looks at the pictures, she sheds a tear and cries softly. During this time, Hasty, who has recovered from his wounds, has been conversing with Tiny about Isabella's recent actions from earlier.

Hasty asks Tiny, "Really? You mean, she... came back for me?"

"Yeah. Lady bandicoot feels terrible for screaming her lungs out at you." Tiny replies.

He gestures out to Isabella and says, "Lady bandicoot's out there right now if you want to go and speak to her."

Seeing Isabella sitting alone in the distance, Hasty gets up and says to Tiny, "Thank you for telling me this, Tiny." before starting out to Isabella while Tiny watches.

Isabella, hearing Hasty's footsteps, turns around and lightly gasps in surprise as she sees him approaching her.

"Oh. It's just you, Hasty." Isabella sighs as Hasty stops at the boulder.

"You... you don't mind if I sit, do you?" Hasty awkwardly asks her, fearing of what she might say to him after what happened the other day.

"No, b-by all means, go ahead." Isabella awkwardly replies, still regretting her actions from the other day.

Hasty sits down next to Isabella, followed by several moments of awkward silence.

"So..." Hasty awkwardly says to Isabella. "I heard that you saved my life this morning."

"Yeah." Isabella awkwardly replies. "I guess I did."

Isabella and Hasty continue to sit there awkwardly before Isabella says, "And I also heard you fixed our kart?"

"Yeah." Hasty awkwardly says. "I did. I sure did."

More moments of awkward silence follow. Eventually, Isabella breaks the ice, sighs in remorse, turns to Hasty and remorsefully tells him, "Listen, Hasty, I'm so sorry I yelled at you the other day. I know you're a real kind, sweet moose and you were just trying to help, but..."

"Hey, hey. It's okay, Isabella." Hasty tells her. "I know you didn't mean to. You were just stressed out, that's all."

"The thing is, though, I am worried sick about my dear Coco." Isabella tells him, concerned.

"Awww, is she your daughter?" Hasty asks her.

"What?" Isabella asks before giggling happily. "No, no, no. She's not my daughter. The thing is, I've become like a mother figure to her recently. Do you realize that she and Crash pretty much had to grow up without a mother to look after them?"

"Wow. That's heavy stuff right there." Hasty says, stunned.

"I know, right?" Isabella tells him. "And I'd hate for something to happen to her out here. All alone out there in the desert without a parental guardian to look after her..."

Hasty, upon hearing this, turns Isabella to face him, and reassures her, "Hey, hey. Issy, look at me. She'll be fine. I mean, after all, she's not a little girl anymore, and she can look out for herself. She and Crash will both be okay."

"You really think so?" Isabella asks him.

"I know so." Hasty replies before noticing all the stars in the sky.

The two of them glance up at the starry sky in awe. Isabella asks Hasty, "Gee, the stars sure are beautiful tonight, aren't they?"

"Yes, they sure are." Hasty replies before gazing into Isabella's eyes. "But they're not as beautiful as you are, my dear."

"You... you really think I'm beautiful?" Isabella asks, surprised at Hasty's words before she scoffs, "No way I'm beautiful right now."

"Hey, that's not true." Hasty reassures her. "You're always beautiful."

"But, Hasty, I... I..." Isabella stutters as she gets up and faces Hasty, gesturing to her body. "I mean, look at me! I haven't showered in days, let alone weeks, my clothes are a wreck, my hair's a mess, I badly hurt myself trying to save you from that ferocious beast, I..."

She stops bashing her appearance when she sees Hasty warmly smiling to her, confident with what he thinks of her beauty. Isabella sits back down next to Hasty and asks him, "So even though I look like a trainwreck, you still think I'm beautiful?"

"Of course I do!" Hasty replies. "Apocalypse or no apocalypse, when it comes to lady bandicoots, you're truly one of a kind."

Isabella smiles happily and, with a twinkle in her eye, warmly says to Hasty, "Thanks for fixing our kart and not giving up on me." She kisses Hasty on the cheek. Hasty's face lights up.

"Well, I, uh..." Hasty says as he clears his throat. "...also wanted to thank you for saving my life today. Didn't think you still cared about me."

"Well, I'd say I've come to care about you more than you think." Isabella says as she and Hasty gaze into each other's eyes. They lean in close and share a nice, long kiss. Tiny, watching from afar, sheds a tear of happiness.

"Awww... Tiny think that's beautiful right there." Tiny happily says to himself.

As they lean back from the kiss, Hasty takes Isabella's hand and tells her, "Don't you worry, Isabella. I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, that first thing in the morning, we are all going to stop that rat from doing any more damage, and I will personally reunite you with Coco or die trying."

"You really mean it?" Isabella asks.

"Cross my heart, hope to die!" Hasty replies.

"Thank you. Thank you so much!" Isabella happily exclaims. "You have no idea how much this means to me!"

She gives Hasty a big hug, who falls over backwards from being tilted too far back. He and Isabella share a laugh over what happened as the two of them gaze into each other's eyes.

Isabella sighs and says, "I love you, Hasty."

"I love you, too, Isabella." Hasty replies as the two of them embrace.

"Now, what do you say we get some sleep?" he asks her. "We have a big day tomorrow; reuniting you with Coco and stopping that rat for good."

"Yep." Isabella yawns as she snuggles up close to Hasty. "Couldn't agree more..."

The two of them fall asleep with their arms wrapped around each other.


	24. Crash & Coco Captured!

The next morning, all the teams are still fast asleep with their groups. Dingodile, who was supposed to be keeping lookout, has apparently fallen asleep in the middle of the night. He tosses and turns, accidentally knocking over a metal can, which falls off the cliff he was standing at and to the ground below him. The clattering of the can gets the attention of the Titans patrolling the area below them.

A group of Titans climb up the cliff and spot Crash and Coco sleeping at their campsite amongst the heroes. They storm over to their campsite, leering over the two of them as they sleep. Coco gets a whiff of the fowl stench of a Sludge Titan and says as she wakes up, "Pee-yew, Crash! That's the last time I let you eat an entire tube of anchovy paste."

She wakes up fully and, seeing the horde of Titans surrounding her and Crash, gets a look of pure fear on her face, followed immediately by loud shrieking, waking up the other teams, who all see the Titans kidnapping Crash and Coco.

As the Titans head back to the battleship with the pair, the teams race after the Titans, screaming Crash and Coco's names. Seeing them approaching fast, a Ratcicle Titan creates a giant wall of ice at the edge of the cliff, blocking the teams' path.

"Oh, no! This is terrible!" Megumi cries. "Crash and Coco have been taken away by those brutes!"

"What are we going to do now?!" N. Gin moans.

Cortex storms up to Dingodile and scolds, "You were supposed to be keeping watch, Dingodile! Now look what's happened!"

"I... I guess I must've dozed off over the night." Dingodile stammers before chuckling nervously.

Cortex groans in annoyance as the teams frantically scramble to make a decision on their next move, with Ami saying, "Seriously! We need a battle plan like, now!"

"Anyone got any ideas?" Crunch asks in concern.

Cortex inhales sharply and approaches the teams, saying, "Well, looks like we have no choice, guys. We're going to have to go in there and fight!"

"But have you seen this giant wall of ice?" asks Liz.

"Yeah! And not to mention this obstacle course directly below us!" Nina says. "We'll never make it across!"

Upon hearing this, Dingodile fires up his lava gun and not only manages to melt the ice wall with it in seconds, but also uses the lava to detonate all the obstacles in the obstacle course below, allowing the teams to make it safely across.

"Problem solved." Dingodile says. "Now let's go, everyone!"

"Double time, everyone! It's now or never!" Ami shouts as she motions everyone to advance towards the battleship. As everyone charges towards the battleship, she sees Cortex approaching their kart.

"Cortex, come on!" she shouts. "This is the moment we've been waiting for!"

"Just go! I'll catch up!" Cortex shouts as he motions Ami to join the others.

As Ami joins the teams inside the battleship, Cortex grabs the radio from their kart and calls for Isabella and her team.

* * *

From Isabella's end, she and Hasty are just waking up from their sleep when they suddenly hear Cortex's voice coming from their radio.

"_Isabella! Are you there?_" Cortex says through the radio. "_Come in! Quickly! This is urgent!_"

Isabella grabs the radio and responds, "I'm here, Cortex! What's wrong?"

"_It's awful!_" Cortex says through the radio. "_Crash and Coco have been captured by vicious Titans!_"

"What?!" Isabella exclaims as she drops the radio and starts to hyperventilate. Hasty picks up the radio as Cortex continues speaking.

"_You and your team have to get over here right now!_" Cortex says through the radio. "_Hurry! There's not a moment to lose!_"

"We'll be there pronto, doc!" Hasty says.

As Hasty hangs up, Cortex asks, "_Wait, who is th—_"

Hasty notices Isabella hyperventilating and approaches her. Isabella moans, "Oh, this is bad! This is so very bad! We all should've stayed together as a group to begin with!"

Hasty rests his hands on Isabella's shoulders and reassures her, "Hey! No one's messing with my friends on my watch!" He walks up to their kart and disconnects the battery cables from the car battery, closes the hood and climbs into the driver's seat, saying, "We're going to save Crash and Coco, and we're going to do it right now! Come on, you guys!"

As the rest of the team piles into the kart, Isabella, in the front passenger seat, gestures towards the death path and says to Hasty, concerned, "But we can't go that way! We'll be burnt to a crisp!"

"Or will we?" Hasty asks with a smile on his face as he presses a button on the dashboard.

Suddenly, the kart begins to lift up off the ground as all four wheels retract into the body of the kart and a large pair of thrusters emerge from the trunk of the kart. Everyone looks on with awe and amazement.

"Wha— You turned it into a flying car!?" Isabella asks with amazement.

"Figured if we're going to travel, we should travel in style." Hasty says to her with determination.

After a brief pause, Isabella happily smiles and says, "Okay, I love you even more now. Can we go on a date when we stop that rat?"

"No time for lovey-dovey!" Tiny interrupts. "Let's go save little bandicoots!"

"Hold on, everyone!" Hasty shouts as he slams his foot on the gas petal, driving straight into the hazardous pathway leading to the battleship.

They drive through the highly hazardous path at high speeds, dodging the above-ground stalagmites, rivers of lava and erupting geysers at every turn. Eventually, they make it out of the path without a single scratch on their kart. They all cheer triumphantly as they get closer to the battleship.

As they pull up to the battleship and stop their kart, Isabella gets Hasty's attention as they dismount. "Hasty, look!"

She directs his attention to what she sees: the Scorporilla that almost killed them earlier amongst the Titans entering the battleship, still missing its tail.

"It's that beast from earlier!" Hasty says. "The one that almost killed me!"

"And it's blocking our only way in!" Isabella says, observing the perimeter.

"What do we do now, lady bandicoot?" Tiny asks Isabella.

"Hmm... Let me think here, guys..." Isabella ponders.

Eventually, the Scorporilla spots Tiny and, remembering what he did to it earlier, whimpers and cowers in fear as Isabella and her team approach it. Getting an idea, Isabella turns to her team with a smile on her face and asks, "Are you all thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Uh, maybe...?" Hasty asks, puzzled as Isabella climbs atop the Scorporilla with determination. The rest of her team looks at each other with confusion.


	25. Brainwashed Into Marriage

Crash and Coco are forced into the hull of the battleship by the Titan army as Megamix watches from below, snarling and slobbering as it anticipates getting its dinner. Gnasty Gnorc approaches the two of them and, holding his weapon to their faces, warns them, "Don't even think about trying anything funny, you little twerps!"

"Ah, if it isn't the one and only Crash Bandicoot and his geeky teen sister!" Geary calls out, getting their attention. "Welcome! You're just in time for the wedding!"

"Wedding?" Coco asks, confused and looking around. "What wedding?"

Crash and Coco witness Pinstripe entering the throne room dressed in a groom's tux.

"Ah! Our captive audience has arrived to witness us tie the knot at long last!" exclaims Pinstripe as he sees Crash and Coco in front of him.

"'Tie the knot?'" Coco asks, puzzled. "What are you talking about, you monster?" Geary then pulls out a small radio and turns it on, which plays romantic wedding music.

Crash, with a look of shock and the feeling of being betrayed on his face, gasps in horror as he and Coco watch Tawna enter the room, wearing an elegant wedding dress and carrying a bouquet of flowers in her hand as Geary approaches the altar.

"Aw, isn't this grand, Pinstripe?" Tawna wistfully says to Pinstripe. "I love you so much and can't wait to spend the rest of my days with you!"

"Of course, Tawna, my dear!" Pinstripe playfully says to Tawna. "I feel the same way about you, my desert queen." He boops her on the nose as the two of them giggle to one another.

Crash, on the verge of tears, goes berserk and dissolves into furious growling, yelling and snarling while Gnasty Gnorc violently pins him and Coco to the ground. Crash continues to loose his marbles as Coco gets his attention.

"No! Crash, don't listen to her!" Coco fearfully tells Crash. "Pinstripe probably has her brainwashed or something like that! Tawna loves you, and she always will!"

"Not anymore she doesn't!" Pinstripe shouts to the two of them. "And once we officially tie the knot and Tawna becomes my queen, we'll feed you both to our monster down below, and then we'll sic it on all of your friends!" prompting Crash and Coco to gasp in horror.

"And then me and Pinstripe will have all the legendary skins we could ever want!" Geary shouts, getting Pinstripe's attention. "We'll never be mistreated or neglected ever again!" He engages in evil laughter as Pinstripe looks at him annoyed and face palms.

Crash and Coco stare at the two of them wide-eyed and jaws agape, and, after a beat, Coco furiously screeches at the top of her lungs, "**_...WHAT?!_**"

Pinstripe then approaches Geary and asks, "Ahem. Uh, Geary, can I have a quick word?"

He pulls Geary in close and says to him, annoyed, "You weren't supposed to say that! We wanted to make this our own little secret!"

"Sorry, I just got caught up in the moment." Geary responds.

Pinstripe sighs in annoyance and says to Geary, "Well, let's just get this wedding started so we can get rid of these pesky bandicoots once and for all. Okay?"

"Got it." Geary responds as Pinstripe turns around and regains his composure. Pinstripe clears his throat and smugly asks, "Now then, where were we?"

Crash growls furiously as Coco herself growls, "_Really?! THAT'S_ what this whole apocalypse is about?! You mean to tell me that you killed billions of innocent lives, you killed my pet, and you threatened my friends, my big brother and his girlfriend ALL BECAUSE YOU AND SOME OCD ROBOT _DIDN'T GET NEW **LEGENDARY SKINS?!**_"

"That's right!" Pinstripe shouts. "For almost eight months since we got back to racing, you and your dimwitted brother have taken all the glory with your precious legendary skins, while me and Geary are practically left in the dust! Well, that ends now! It's our turn to get legendary skins for once!"

"You monster!" Coco screams as she and Crash wrestle their way out of Gnasty Gnorc's grip. "The way you and that robot are behaving, we'll see to it that you two _never_ get a legendary skin for as long as you live!"

Infuriated with her words, Geary fires a vacuum seal bag at her, wrapping her up and preventing her from speaking. Crash shrieks at seeing Coco silenced, and as he tries to free her, he growls at Geary.

"Oh, you shouldn't have said that, you stubborn teenage brat!" Geary sinisterly says.

"Geary!" Pinstripe calls out, getting his attention. "No time for a formal wedding! Skip to the good part and let's kill Crash!"

"Yes, sir!" Geary exclaims as he, Pinstripe and Tawna approach the altar. "Pinstripe, do you?"

"I do." Pinstripe smugly answers.

By this point, Crash has managed to rip part of the vacuum-sealed bag at Coco's mouth. She gasps for air as Crash turns to Pinstripe and Tawna in a panic.

Geary turns to Tawna and asks, "Tawna, do you?"

"I do." Tawna wistfully replies.

"Tawna, come on! Snap out of it!" Coco fearfully cries out as Crash watches, terrified. "Don't marry this psychopath!"

"Then, by the power vested in me..." Geary concludes. "I now pronounce you potoroo and—"

Before Geary can make it official, a voice cries out, "We object!" getting everyone's attention.


	26. The Final Confrontation!

From the shadows of the basement emerges Oxide, along with the rest of the prisoners, who were freed by all the teams, who join Oxide and the prisoners armed with their weapons as they slowly approach Pinstripe at the altar, battle-ready and with looks of anger and determination on their faces. Moments later, Cortex barges in through the ceiling and lands next to Crash as he manages to free Coco from the vacuum-sealed bag.

"Oh, got us some wedding crashers, do we?" Pinstripe smugly asks.

"Your little charade ends right here, right now, Pinstripe!" Cortex cries out. "Let Tawna go!"

"Too late!" exclaims Geary, who steps in front of Pinstripe and Tawna, armed with N. Tropy's staff. "If you won't back down now, then we will have no choice but to fight each and every one of you!"

"Then so be it!" Oxide shouts as everyone gets into battle position.

"You've been asking for this for the longest time, you jerks!" Coco shouts.

"We'll teach you to nuke the earth over not getting a freaking legendary skin, you rat!" Dingodile shouts as he fires up his lava gun.

"Don't just stand there, Gnorc!" Pinstripe shouts to Gnasty Gnorc. "Call for backup! Now!"

"Yes, sir!" Gnasty Gnorc says before banging his hammer on the ground, summoning a massive horde of Titans, which surround the heroes and block their path to Pinstripe, Geary and Tawna.

"Well, looks like you and your little posse are outnumbered here." Pinstripe says with a smug grin on his face.

"A valiant effort, but you all lack the strength possessed by our fellow Titans!" Geary exclaims.

Suddenly, a voice calls out, "Is that so?" getting everyone's attention.

Leaping down from the rafters and joining Crash and the others is Tiny, followed by Polar, Ripper Roo and King Chicken.

"Tiny! You're back!" Megumi happily exclaims. "What kept you?"

"It's a long story, cute bandicoot." Tiny tells her. "But now's not the time."

"Nope, still not enough." Pinstripe snarks. "Still outnumbered."

Suddenly, the ground below them begins to shake. Seconds later, the same Scorporilla that Tiny attacked earlier barges through the wall of the battleship and into the throne room, with Isabella and Hasty riding atop it.

"Or are we?" Hasty happily shouts.

"Isabella!" Coco screams with happiness. "You've made it!"

"That's right, Coco!" Isabella says to her as she and Hasty dismount from the Scorporilla. "Now what do you say we take care of these pests?"

"I couldn't agree more!" Coco exclaims.

"Enough is enough!" Pinstripe shouts as he grabs Tawna and starts to back away. "Let's finish this!"

He climbs into an elevator shaft with Tawna and activates it as Geary joins Gnasty Gnorc and the Titans on the battlefield, armed with N. Tropy's staff. Pinstripe and Tawna ascend above the battlefield and up to a platform high above them. Pinstripe pulls a lever, sounding an alarm while screaming, "Get them!"

The Titans, Geary and Gnasty Gnorc begin to charge towards the heroes as Oxide calls out, "Attack!" The final battle commences as everyone uses their skills and abilities to fight the Titans.

While the Scorporilla kicks and punches Titans around, Crash uses parkour and his signature spin attack to launch them out of the battleship into the desert.

Cortex uses his dark magic to lift Titans up and throws them towards Dingodile, who disintegrates them to ash with his lava gun.

Tiny slashes at Titans while Pura uses his buzz-saw tail to attack them.

N. Gin activates his apparatus so Ami can light her explosives and throw them at Titans.

Coco, Polar and Penta Penguin run circles around the Titans, disorienting the Titans before Crunch socks them in the face.

Von Clutch uses his helmet like a frisbee, slicing the Titans to pieces.

Fake Crash fires his paintball gun at the Titans while Pasadena uses her tail like a whip.

Oxide fires his ray gun at the Titans while Nash fires missiles at them.

Ripper Roo, N. Brio and King Chicken are chased around by Titans, before the Norms stop the Titans in their tracks. They distract the Titans with their mime tricks before Big Norm cuts an invisible rope, dropping a massive piano on the Titans. The two of them high five.

Nina Cortex uses her robotic arms to electrocute Titans that try to attack her.

N. Trance and the babies are cornered by a group of Titans, before Liz and Baby T. attack the Titans, saving N. Trance and the babies.

Rilla Roo uses Zam like a bowling ball the knock over Titans, who are squashed seconds later by the Scorporilla.

The big guys (Hasty, Krunk, Papu Papu and Koala Kong) wrestle and headbutt the Titans.

Isabella and the Komodo Bros. use their ninja weapons to attack any Titan that comes close to them.

The Ratnicians prepare to attack Megumi and Yaya Panda. However, they are immediately distracted by their cuteness, allowing Chick and Stew to knock them out.

* * *

During the fight, Gnasty Gnorc and Geary spot Ami, Dingodile and Fake Crash boarding the same elevator Pinstripe used earlier. As they begin to ascend towards Pinstripe, Gnasty screams, "No!" and fires a blast from his weapon, which is cancelled when Ami tosses a bomb at it. "Come on, Geary!" Gnasty growls as the two of them climb up onto the throne platform. Unfortunately, they discover that the trio have destroyed the controls for the elevator so that Gnasty Gnorc and Geary cannot follow them up.

"Geary! Gnasty! What's going on down there?" Pinstripe shouts before he notices Ami, Dingodile and Fake Crash disembarking from the elevator, approaching him and Tawna with their weapons armed.

"I believe you have someone that belongs to us, rat!" Dingodile says to him.

"Who are you weirdos?" Tawna asks. "Me and my new hubby here have a honeymoon to get started!"

Ami approaches Tawna and tries to talk snap her out of her hypnosis, shouting, "Tawna! Don't you recognize me? It's me, Ami! We're your friends!" She grabs her by the arms and starts shaking her back and forth rapidly, shouting, "What's gotten into you?!"

Pinstripe shoves Ami to the ground and shouts, "Unhand my queen, you wimp!"

This gets Coco's attention, who looks up and sees Apo-Apo high up in the ceiling rafters channeling its hypnotic energy into Tawna as Pinstripe continues to talk down to Ami and the others.

"Crash!" Coco calls out, getting his attention as she approaches him. "Tawna's being hypnotized by that mask up there! We have to stop it! Get on my back, big brother!"

Crash climbs atop Coco's back and holds on to her tight. "What do you say we have a piggyback ride, just like the good ol' days?" she asks him.

Crash happily nods and, seconds later, Coco uses her super speed to dart up to the rafters where Apo-Apo is. She also spots Spyro and Hunter tied up below the mask.

As Apo-Apo backs away, Coco tells Crash, "Quick! You take care of that mask, and I'll free Spyro and his friend here!"

Crash begins to approach Apo-Apo who continues to back away as Coco attempts to walk towards Spyro and Hunter. She slips and accidentally drops her goggles, which land on Pinstripe's head, getting his attention and allowing him to spot the siblings up in the rafters.

"No!" he exclaims. "Mr. Gnorc! Stop them!"

Gnasty Gnorc, seeing what Coco is attempting to do, shouts, "With pleasure!" He then fires a blast from his weapon, which strikes Coco and causes her to plummet down to Gnasty Gnorc. Crash screams in terror as he watches Coco plummet. Coco lands on the ground next to Gnasty Gnorc, where Geary uses N. Tropy's staff to pick up a large metal beam. He throws the metal beam at Coco, crushing her legs, causing her to scream at the top of her lungs in absolute pain and leaving her unable to move.

She screams in pain and agony, "My legs! They're crushed! Every bone in my legs, broken! Can't move!"

Crash cries out in horror before turning to Apo-Apo with great fury. The two of them glare at each other in the eyes.

"Well, so much for Crash's brainiac sister." Pinstripe chuckles, looking down at Coco before turning back to Tawna. "Now then, my bride, what do you say we get out of here before—"

Before Pinstripe can finish, Tawna socks him in the face so hard, he falls face first on the platform as Tawna rips off her wedding dress and tosses it at Pinstripe. By the time Pinstripe, confused, gets up and removes the wedding dress from his face, he is shocked to discover that Tawna is no longer under Apo-Apo's control and is dressed in Rustland battle armor, breathing heavily with a look of pure rage on her face and ready to rip him apart.

"_I. WILL. __**NEVER.**__ BE. YOUR. BRIDE. YOU. RAT!_" she roars at him.

"Yes!" Ami happily exclaims. "THAT'S the Tawna we know and love!"

"But, wait..." Pinstripe says, confused. "How could this...?"

He looks around and sees Crash in the rafters wrestling with Apo-Apo, blocking its eyes so that he can't hypnotize Tawna. Pinstripe growls in anger before noticing that Crash has also freed Spyro and Hunter. Pinstripe growls louder before hearing a voice shout, "Dragon incoming!" He spins around to see Spyro and Hunter charging straight towards him, headbutting him off the platform and towards the battlefield below.

Before Pinstripe can hit the ground, he grabs onto a grappling hook, which carries him over to a platform on the opposite side of the room. "Don't just float there, Apo!" he shouts. "Do something!"

Apo-Apo, hearing Pinstripe's words, makes his eyes glow red again, burning Crash's hands and forcing him to let go. As Crash plummets, Tawna sees him, frightfully calls out his name and tosses him a rope, which Crash manages to grab hold of so he can get down safely. Crash lands next to Coco and attempts to remove the metal beam from her legs.

Gnasty Gnorc, seeing Crash and Coco defenseless, attempts to approach them, but he is stopped in his tracks by Hunter, who holds him at bow-point, before Spyro breathes fire at him and headbutts him, pinning Gnasty Gnorc to the ground and causing him to drop his weapon next to Crash.

"Hold on, Crash! I'll be right down!" Tawna shouts as she looks for a safe way to get down. This gets Pinstripe's attention, and, seeing Tawna grab onto the same rope Crash used to get down, he roars with anger and whistles for Apo-Apo, who approaches Pinstripe. Pinstripe grabs Apo-Apo and attaches it to his face, giving him a massive surge of power, which gets Tawna's attention as she lands on the platform next to Pinstripe's throne. "Oh, heaven help us all..." she whimpers.

"Megamix! I order you to get up here now!" Pinstripe says with a demonic voice. "_**DESTROY CRASH BANDICOOT!**_"

Tawna suddenly feels the ground rumbling beneath her feet and breathes shakily. After a brief pause, Megamix suddenly leaps into the throne room from below, creating a giant hole in the ground, and lands on the ground with great force, letting out a massive roar, getting everyone's attention.

The force of Megamix landing on the ground is so strong that all the way up on the balcony, Fake Crash, Dingodile and Ami lose their balance and fall over, causing all of Ami's explosives to spill out of her backpack, along with Fake Crash's paint pack and Dingodile's lava pack to become detached from them.

The three of them watch as all three components fall into the newly created hole and onto a large pile of metallic and flammable materials, including large amounts of gasoline and kerosene.

"Oh, this isn't good." Ami whimpers, very worried.

All these components combined creates a massive explosion, spewing fireballs everywhere and throwing the three of them into the air and onto the battlefield below. Crunch manages to catch Ami before she hits the ground.

"Don't worry, Ami! I got you!" Crunch says.

"Remind me to give you an up-close reward later." Ami says to him as they continue to fight the Titans.

Tawna looks into the hole and sees a massive pool of lava below. As more fireballs erupt from the pit, one fireball hits a section of railing supporting a section of the platform she's standing on, which starts to come loose, causing her to back away.

She calls out, "Crash! Coco! Where are you? This lava will melt this entire battleship! We have to hurry!"

Before she can go looking for them, Megamix blocks her path, roars in her face and picks her up. "Hey! Unhand me, you mutant brute!" Tawna yells as Megamix grabs her as the battle resumes below them.

"Get her to the roof, Megamix!" Pinstripe shouts at him. "I'll call for a carrier so we can get out of here!"

"Yes, sir!" Megamix replies. "It would be my— OUR pleasure!"

As Megamix begins to climb up to the roof, Tawna cries out, "Crash! Help me!"

Crash and Coco look up and see Megamix rapidly ascending towards the roof. Coco takes Crash's hand and urges him, "Go, Crash! Go save her! I'll be fine!"

Crash nods and prepares to move, before noticing Gnasty Gnorc whimpering on the ground. "Please have mercy..." Gnasty Gnorc whimpers as Crash glares at him and takes his weapon.

"Hey, Crash!" Spyro calls to him as he motions him to grab onto his tail. "Need a lift, buddy?" Crash nods with determination.

* * *

As Megamix continues to ascend towards the roof with Tawna in tow, Tawna pokes Megamix in the eye, causing him to growl viciously.

"Forget Pinstripe's orders! I've got me— WE'VE got US a hankering for some deep-fried bandicoot!" he says as holds her above the lava pit and prepares to let her go.

Tawna then tries reasoning with Megamix, telling him, "No! You don't want to kill me! Pinstripe's just using you for his own selfish purposes! You're better than this!"

Tawna's words manage to get through to Megamix, who tries to break free from Apo-Apo's spell.

"We want to listen to you, but we're being forced to follow this rat's orders!" Megamix cries. "Help us, please!"

Megamix almost manages to fully break free from Apo's spell before he sees Pinstripe furiously calling him out, saying "Megamix! What in the heck do you think you're doing? Don't listen to her incoherent blabbering! Bring her to me!"

He taps Apo-Apo, who blasts Megamix with another burst of energy, putting him back under Pinstripe's control.

"Well, so much for peaceful reasoning. Crash! Hurry!" yells Tawna.

As he prepares to climb to the roof, he hears a voice from behind him saying, "Hey! Mega-Mucus!"

Megamix spins around to see Crash, wielding Gnasty Gnorc's weapon, flying up with Spyro to Megamix. He lets go of Spyro, lands in front of Megamix and charges Gnasty's weapon.

"_**LET. HER. GO.**_" Crash growls, ready to do Megamix in.

Tawna exclaims, "Crash! You're here to save me! And... and you're actually talking!"

Megumi looks at her scanner and exclaims, "Of course! That's Crash's special power! The ability to speak! He just needed some emotional pressure to let it out!"

Tawna grabs hold of a nearby grappling hook and spots its control panel right next to Crash.

"Crash! Press that button next to you!" Tawna shouts to him.

"Got it!" Crash replies as he presses the button on the panel, causing the grappling hook's conveyor belt to start moving, freeing Tawna from Megamix's grasp and lowering her down to where Coco is.

"I'll see you down below, Crash!" yells Tawna.

Megamix turns to Crash and lets out a mighty roar right in his face. Crash doesn't even flinch in fear and says to Megamix, "Yeah, yeah. Roar all you want. It's not going to do you any good, buddy."

Crash takes Gnasty's weapon and fires it on the platform they're standing on, freezing it.

Megamix laughs haughtily and says to Crash, "Ha! You honestly think this will stop us, you little runt?"

"Without a doubt." Crash says to him with a smug grin on his face.

Suddenly, a cracking sound is heard. Megamix looks down and sees that his weight is causing the platform to give out. Crash lightly taps the platform with Gnasty's weapon, causing it to shatter to pieces. He and Megamix plummet to the ground below with Megamix yelling the whole way. Crash makes a safe landing next to the lava pit while Megamix lands atop of Geary, ejecting him from N. Tropy's armor and causing him to fly through the air to Pinstripe's platform and collide with Pinstripe, which in turn causes Apo-Apo to become detached from Pinstripe's face, freeing Megamix from Pinstripe's control. Pinstripe and Geary both fall onto the battlefield below.

Pinstripe, struggling to get Geary off of him, shouts, "Geary, you fool! Get off of me!"

"Sorry, my lord!" Geary says as he climbs off of Pinstripe.

"Stay here while I do away with this pest before he gets to my bride!" Pinstripe tells him.

"Yes, sir!" Geary says as Pinstripe races over to the lava pit platform where Crash, Coco, Tawna and Megamix are.

"Crash! Over here! Hurry!" Coco cries out while Tawna struggles to lift the support beam from her legs.

"Hold on, guys! I'm coming!" Crash shouts as he races to Coco and Tawna.

"NO!" Pinstripe yells as he leaps through the air and lands right next to Crash, getting his attention. Crash spins around and Pinstripe punches him clean in the face, causing Crash to fall over backwards right next to N. Tropy's staff, which Geary dropped earlier.

Coco cries out, "No, Pinstripe! Don't hurt him, please!"

"Shut up!" Pinstripe yells at Coco. He then turns to Crash and says, "You ruined everything, you orange pest! Now I'll show you what happens when you mess with a king!"

He snaps his fingers and calls out for Apo-Apo, yelling, "Apo! Deep fry these bandicoots until there's nothing left of them!"

Apo-Apo races over to Pinstripe. Crash, in a panic, grabs both Gnasty's weapon and N. Tropy's staff and blindly fires them both. Before Apo-Apo can even make contact with Pinstripe's face, the blast from N. Tropy's staff freezes it in place midair, while the blast from Gnasty's weapon freezes it rock solid. In its frozen state, it falls to the ground on the unstable platform right next to the lava pit. This causes all the Titans to stop fighting the heroes, as they are no longer under Apo's control. Everyone directs their attention to where Crash is.

Pinstripe fearfully turns to Crash, whose eyes are bloodshot and filled with indescribable amounts of rage as he wields both N. Tropy's staff and Gnasty's weapon, both of which are giving off so much energy, they're causing Crash's hair to stand up.

"Do it, Crash! Teach this rat a lesson right here, right now!" yells Tawna.

"WITH. PLEASURE." Crash growls through clinched teeth.

Coco turns to Megamix and tells him, "You! Get Tawna somewhere safe! This could get ugly."

"Yes, ma'am." Megamix meekishly replies as he gently picks up Tawna and takes her down to the battlefield with the rest of the heroes.

"YOU. _**MONSTER!**_" Crash roars as he advances on Pinstripe, who keeps backing up until he's standing on the loose section of platform.

Pinstripe, now genuinely terrified, tries to reason with Crash, saying, "Now, now, take it easy there, Crash. Let's just talk about this, okay? Sure, Geary and I may have nuked the earth over something as trivial as not getting a legendary skin, but with the benefit of hindsight—"

Before Pinstripe can finish speaking, Crash uses N. Tropy's staff on Pinstripe, freezing him in place and unable to move.

"_THAT_ was for killing billions of innocent people!" yells Crash as he powers up the staff again.

"And **THIS**...!" he yells as he uses the staff to strip Pinstripe of his kingly attire, leaving him in nothing but his boxer shorts.

"_THAT_ was for threatening my friends!" he shouts as he tosses N. Tropy's staff to Coco, who catches it and uses it to lift the metal beam from her legs, which Crash notices.

"And _**THIS**_ is for hurting my little sister!" Crash screams as he takes Gnasty's weapon and fires it at Pinstripe, freezing him rock solid.

Finally, Crash screeches at the top of his lungs, "And most of all... **_THIS IS FOR SCREWING WITH MY GIRLFRIEND!_**"

He leaps into the air, charges Gnasty's weapon and hits it on Pinstripe's unstable platform with so much force, that it gets dangerously close to breaking off and plummeting into the lava pit below. Crash, landing back on the ground, grabs a nearby vacuum cleaner bag, storms up to Pinstripe in his frozen state and glares at him dead in the eye, snarling.

"I guess peaceful reasoning's out of the question, then?" Pinstripe chuckles nervously.

"You two will _NEVER_ get a legendary skin, **_EVER._**" Crash growls as he slices open the vacuum cleaner bag, spilling vacuum dust all over Pinstripe, getting the attention of Geary.

"Dust? DUST?!" Geary exclaims.

Crash steps back and walks over to Coco as Geary races over to Pinstripe.

"DEPLOYING SANITARY REINFORCEMENT!" Geary shouts as he leaps into the air towards the loose platform, prompting Pinstripe to scream, "Geary, no! WAIT! Don't land on the—"

Geary lands on the unstable piece of platform right next to Pinstripe. The force of his landing is so great, that the platform supports give out and the loose end plummets into the fire pit below while Pinstripe, Geary and Apo-Apo are left hovering briefly.

Pinstripe groans, "Geary, you moron."

Pinstripe, Geary and Apo-Apo all plummet into the lava pit and to their deaths, screaming the whole way. They are immediately burnt to a crisp the second they make contact with the lava. Crash looks into the hole as he hears them screaming bloody murder the entire time. Pinstripe and Geary's charred hands reach out from the lava, before Pinstripe's hand disintegrates to ash while Geary's hand melts.

As Crash tends to Coco, Apo-Apo flies up out of the lava pit while on fire and prepares to do them in, only to disintegrate to ash himself, never to be seen again.

"Good riddance." Crash says as he turns towards the Titan army. He glares at them, forcing the Titans to run away, out of the battleship and into the desert, never to harass the heroes again.

Gnasty Gnorc gets up, and seeing the Titan army fleeing, whimpers before he notices Spyro and Hunter glaring at him. "Oh, hey guys." He nervously chuckles before Hunter grabs him by the shoulder, lifts him up and drags him out of the battleship with Spyro flying behind and scolding Gnasty Gnorc.

"You're coming back to the Dragon Realms with us, Gnorc!" he scolds. "The Dragon Elders will have some words with you, and you can bet they won't be family-friendly!"

Gnasty tries to reason with the pair, saying, "Look, Spyro, we can talk about this, okay? You like gems? I can get you as many gems as you want for you and your sweetie Elora—"

"Zip it!" Hunter snaps to Gnasty Gnorc. "Don't make me have Bianca turn you into a toad, you simpleton."

"Hey! Who are you calling 'simple', you fool?!" Gnasty yells as he's dragged away into the desert.

Before Spyro leaves with Hunter and Gnasty Gnorc, he turns to Crash and calls out, "Until next time, Crash! See ya!"

He flies away as Crash calls out, "Bye, Spyro!"


	27. Back to Normal

Crash then turns and approaches Coco. He places his hand on her face and asks her, "Are you okay, little sis?"

Coco responds by giving Crash a big hug. "Crash! You did it! I knew you could!"

As they continue to hug, Hasty leads Tawna and Isabella up to the platform they're on.

Hasty turns to Isabella and tells her, "Ta-da! As promised, I have delivered you to Coco safely." As Isabella's face lights up with pure happiness and delight, Hasty tells her, "Go to her, Issy."

Tawna and Isabella excitedly call out Crash and Coco's names as they dart towards them, giving them the biggest of hugs as Hasty watches with a smile on his face.

"I thought I'd never see you again, Coco, my sweetheart!" Isabella happily cries.

"And I am so glad you did away with that rat once and for all, Crash!" Tawna exclaims as she embraces him. "You're our hero!"

As they all embrace, two balls of light emerge from the pit, flying through the air and up to the lifeless shells of Aku Aku and Uka Uka dangling from the ceiling. After a brief pause, the two masks spring back to life.

"Whoa, what an experience that was! Feels like I've been dead for a month." Uka Uka says in a daze.

"My brother, we _have_ been dead for a month." Aku Aku tells him.

"Hmm. Good point, bro." Uka Uka replies.

"Aku Aku!" Coco exclaims.

"Uka Uka!" Cortex exclaims.

"You're alive!" they both exclaim.

The two masks float down to everyone as Aku Aku uses his powers to extinguish the lava in the pit.

"Yeah, yeah, we're alive." Uka Uka says as he floats over to Cortex. "Now then, would you mind explaining to me what's going on, Cortex?"

"Uh, well... you see, Uka Uka..." Cortex hesitates.

"It's a long story." N. Gin tells Uka Uka, speaking for Cortex.

"Y-yes! And we'll tell you all about it eventually!" Cortex mumbles.

As Cortex and Uka Uka continue to bicker, Aku Aku floats over to Crash and his friends.

"Well done, my children!" he tells them. "You defeated Pinstripe and saved us all from certain death!"

Isabella picks up Coco and walks over to Aku Aku.

"Well, we're all glad to have you back, Aku Aku!" Coco happily tells him.

Suddenly, a dark shadow falls over everyone. Everyone looks up and sees the carrier Pinstripe called for earlier.

"Look! There's the carrier!" Megumi exclaims as Crash, Coco, Tawna, Isabella, Aku Aku and Hasty regroup with the other racers. "We can use it to find a new place to call home!"

"Yeah! Maybe it can take us somewhere with clean air! Or maybe a nice beachfront property!" Yaya exclaims. "I'm sure there's got to be at least one out there somewhere!"

"But, Yaya, you do realize that all of earth's been nuked, right?" Isabella reluctantly asks Yaya.

"Yeah, there might not even be any oasises or beaches left to even go to." Komodo Joe reluctantly tells her.

Upon hearing this, Yaya sulks as the Komodo Bros. approach her and comfort her.

"Ssssorry, little one." Komodo Moe sadly tells her as he rests his hand on her shoulder.

"I mean, I'd invite you all to come live with me on my planet, Barin, but you all would freeze to death." Nash tells everyone.

"And don't even get us started on the wonky physics of Fenomena." Big Norm adds.

"Well, then... where will we all go?" Ami asks dejectedly as Crunch comforts her.

Krunk clears his throat and asks, "If I might make a suggestion?"

"What is it, Krunk?" Crunch asks him.

"Why don't we take it to my home planet Terra?" Krunk replies. "I mean, after all, we did copy your planet to make it come to be!"

Everyone thinks for a minute before Tiny exclaims, "Sounds good to Tiny!"

"Hey, as long as we don't have to deal with that green robotic king again, I'm all for it!" Cortex says, before asking everyone, "What do you say, everyone?"

Everyone cheers in agreement as Aku Aku says, "Well, then. What are we waiting for? Let's go, everyone."

"Wait!" Crash cries out, getting everyone's attention. "Before we go, there's one thing I have to do first."

Crash takes N. Tropy's staff, inhales deeply and uses the staff to gather up the shattered remains of N. Tropy, then he uses the staff to reassemble N. Tropy. He approaches N. Tropy and touches him, freeing him from his frozen state. N. Tropy collapses to the ground.

"I'm... I'm alive?" N. Tropy groggily says as he gets up and looks around before happily exclaiming, "I'm alive! Oh, it's a miracle!"

Crash gathers N. Tropy's armor and staff, approaches him and says, "N. Tropy, I believe these belong to you."

N. Tropy takes his armor and puts it back on, then he takes his staff, restoring his powers the second he grabs hold of it.

"Crash, my boy! You did it!" N. Tropy heartily exclaims to Crash. "You saved my life and defeated that rat and robot!"

"Hey, no problem!" Crash replies as he gives N. Tropy a fist bump.

"After all, someone's got to undo this post-apocalyptic wasteland and restore it back to the way it was before." Cortex says as everyone gathers around him.

"Please. Tell us you can fix this." Tawna begs, concerned that he might not be able to.

"No time to worry, my dear." N. Tropy reassures her. "I'll have this whole post-apocalyptic nightmare erased in just a moment! Stand back, everyone!"

* * *

N. Tropy grasps his staff, inhales sharply, and waves it around in a choreographed fashion, much to the amazement of everyone. Suddenly, a bright light emerges from his staff, and seconds later, earth is restored to its natural green state, back to the way it was before. Everyone, now back in their normal state and clothing and whatever mutations they had disappeared, finds themselves right back where they started: right in front of Crash's house. Everyone who was killed has been brought back to life as well.

"It's... it's Wumpa Island!" Coco says excitedly. "Look, Crash! There's N. Sanity Beach, and there's our house! We're home!"

As Crash and Coco run around their front yard for the first time in over a month, Cortex turns to N. Tropy and tells him, "Wow. I never thought I'd actually be happy to see Crash and his friends still alive, but you sure did a great job undoing that mess, N. Tropy."

"Well, they don't call me the Master of Time for nothing, now do they?" N. Tropy says to him.

Coco hugs Crash and exclaims, "Oh, Crash! I don't know how this could get any better!"

Suddenly, Coco hears a very familiar meow from behind her. She spins around to see Pura, back to his normal tiger self, sitting in front of her.

Coco happily gasps and exclaims, "Pura! You're back! I thought I'd never see your cute and cuddly exterior ever again!"

Everyone watches as Coco gives Pura a big hug, with Isabella joining in seconds later.

Coco warmly tells Isabella, "Thanks for encouraging me to never give up, Isabella."

"Aww, you know I love and care about you too much that I would never give up on you, now do you, Coco?" Isabella says to her.

"That's right! And now, Isabella has someone watching over her back to make sure nothing ever happens to her!" Hasty says as he wraps his arm around Isabella.

Coco, surprised, asks, "Wait. You mean that you two are...?"

Isabella and Hasty both nod. Coco squeals with delight as they all share a group hug.

Oxide, watching them embrace, turns to Zam and says, "Aww, they not be related, but they still make one cute, happy family, don't they, Zam?"

Zam barks in agreement.

Suddenly, Zem appears out of nowhere and exclaims, "Hey, hey! I'm back! Did anyone miss me?"

Everyone loudly groans in annoyance.

"Great. Just when I thought I wouldn't have to put up with this pig again." Oxide grumbles to himself.

Crash approaches Tawna, who happily spins around, embracing the feeling of fresh air again. She sighs contently and happily says to Crash, "Oh, Crash. I really missed all the feelings of being embraced by good ol' Mother Nature, haven't you?"

Crash attempts to speak, but can only let out unintelligible gibberish, followed by a shocked gasp.

"Wha... But I thought..." Tawna says, concerned. "N. Tropy! Why can't Crash speak?"

Aku Aku floats to Crash and Tawna, and says, "Unfortunately, my children, it seems that when N. Tropy erased the damage, everything from that post-apocalyptic fiasco was undone, even Crash's ability to speak."

Crash moans in sadness before Tawna happily embraces him.

"Well, I don't care!" Tawna happily exclaims. "I still love him for who he is and the torment he had to go through to save us all from that wasteland!"

"Our hero!" shouts Crunch.

"Let's hear it for Crash, everybody!" exclaims Coco as everyone erupts in applause and cheers for Crash.

N. Gin sniffles and happily says, "I'm actually happy. IT HURTS!"

As everyone cheers for Crash, Pinstripe and Geary emerge from a nearby ditch, having been brought back to life.

Geary, confused, looks around and asks, "Wait, I'm alive? But how?"

Pinstripe likewise asks, "Wha... I'm back? How is this possible? I—"

Pinstripe glances over and sees Tawna happily embracing Crash.

"I think I see the perfect opportunity to get my revenge for being boiled alive!" Pinstripe tells Geary as the two of them get up.

"Yes! Let's get them!" Geary shouts. "Let's get our skins!"

Before they can attack Crash and the others, Oxide and his minions step in front of them, blocking their path.

"Not so fast, rat! You two are coming with us to Gasmoxia." Oxide tells the two of them. "Our ruler would like to have a few words with you both!"

"Pfft. Like fun, we are." scoffs Pinstripe.

"Oh, please, Oxide! Don't take me back!" Geary whines. "I can't bear to face our ruler again!"

"Sorry, robot, but you should've thought of that when you two decided to blow up the earth over something as petty as not getting legendary skins." Oxide says to Geary. "Grab him!"

"Hey! You can't do this to me!" Geary shouts as Oxide's minions grab hold of him. "I am machine! I am far superior than any living, breathing organism! I will have my time to—"

"Ah, save it for the jury, you metal head." Nash snarks as he hits the mute button on his back.

"And you!" Oxide says to Pinstripe. "Tawna wanted me to give this to you personally, you filthy animal."

Oxide hands him an envelope, which Pinstripe snatches out of his hands.

"Oh, ho ho ho, boy! I hope it's a love letter!" Pinstripe happily exclaims.

"Wow, you are so stupid." Oxide says as he sets up a tractor beam.

Pinstripe opens the envelope and reads the document inside.

"What? A restraining order?!" Pinstripe shouts as he, Geary, Oxide and his minions are being beamed onto his ship. "She can't do this to me! I'm her one and only! Not that idiotic orange furball that she calls a boyfriend! Just you wait, Tawna! You will be mine someday...!"

Oxide's spaceship takes off into space.

"Pfft. Not gonna happen." said Tawna as she hugs Crash. "Crash is my one and only, and there's nothing in the world that can change that!"

Suddenly, everyone hears Uka Uka yelling, "What are you talking about, Cortex?"

Everyone directs their attention to a nearby dock, where Cortex and the rest of his minions are seen climbing aboard his airship, ready to head back to Cortex's lab.

"We have the bandicoots right where we want them!" Uka Uka shouts to Cortex. "Let's do them in now while we still have the chance!"

"We could do that, Uka Uka, but they've been through enough torture the past month already." Cortex pleads to Uka Uka. "What do you say we give them a break, huh?"

"Fine!" Uka Uka groans. "But you have to promise me you'll get to work on another evil plan to do them in soon! Understood?"

"Yes, mighty Uka Uka." Cortex says as he turns to Brio. "Come along, N. Brio!"

"C-c-coming, Dr. Cortex!" N. Brio stutters as he prepares to climb aboard the airship.

Suddenly, Tawna calls out, "Brio, wait up!"

Brio turns to see Tawna, Crash and Coco approaching him. Coco holds an envelope in her hand addressed to Brio.

"Tawna! Crash! Coco!" exclaims Brio.

Uka Uka groans and says, "More sappiness? Let's go already!"

Cortex shushes Uka Uka as he and the rest of his minions watch Brio with the bandicoots.

"What's going on, you guys?" Brio asks as he approaches the bandicoots. "Have you c-c-come to see me off?"

Crash nods as Tawna says, "We sure have, but we also have a surprise for you."

"A surprise? Really?" Brio asks, befuddled. "What ever could it be?"

"Well, we all talked it over and to make up for all the torment you had to go through, we all pitched in and got a little something for you." Coco says as she hands Brio the envelope.

He opens it and is ecstatic as he reads the enclosed document. "Is this... Can this be...?" he asks.

Crash, Coco and Tawna all nod in unison. He finishes reading the document.

"It is! My very first legendary skin! Oh, thank you!" Brio happily exclaims as he gives all three of the bandicoots a big hug. "Thank you all so much!"

"We should have it ready for you when the next season starts!" Tawna tells him.

* * *

Shortly afterwards, Cortex, Brio and the villains take off in Cortex's airship back to Cortex's iceberg lab.

"Ta-ta, bandicoots!" Cortex says as he waves goodbye. "We'll be back to destroy you soon!"

"Bye, Cortex!" exclaims Coco.

"Wait, is he seriously going to destroy us all?" Liz asks, concerned.

Tawna scoffs and says, "Not a chance."

"We always stop him." Coco says to Liz. "It's practically become a daily routine."

"Uh, looks like they forgot a little something here." Crunch says as he gestures to Megamix, cowering out of fear of what the heroes will do to him.

"Aww, the poor thing." Megumi says as she approaches Megamix. She rests his hand on Megamix's face, causing Megamix to look at Megumi's smiling face. Megamix sheepishly smiles back in response.

"I'll find a good home for him." Megumi reassures everyone.

"Aww, isn't Megumi sweet?" Ami says. "Pinstripe attempted to have this beast kill us and Crash, and yet, Meggy's willing to help him out. That's what we like best about her."

"Yep. And no one can change that. Not now, not ever." Coco says, before turning to the heroes and asking, "Now, what do you say we give our burger cookout another try?"

Everyone cheers as they head back to the bandicoot house while the sun sets in the west, bringing the story to its happy conclusion.

...Or is it really over?


	28. Or Is It?

Meanwhile, deep in outer space, Oxide's ship approaches the distant planet of Gasmoxia, where it docks at the bow of a massive mothership.

Sometime later, Pinstripe and Geary are led by Oxide and his minions into a large throne room. Pinstripe looks around and sees the letter "V" plastered all over the walls and tapestry in the room. He also spots pictures of Oxide, Zam, Zem and the Nitro Kart bosses, with Geary's picture in particular being defaced with the word "TRAITOR!" being scribbled all over it. Pinstripe then turns to Geary, who is shaking with absolute fear.

"What's your problem?" Pinstripe asks him.

"Oh! I'm not ready to face my ultimate master!" Geary whimpers, trembling with fear. "He's gonna turn me into his own personal coffee maker when he gets done with me!"

"Quit yer bellyachin', Geary!" says Pinstripe. "Together, we can teach this so-called 'emperor' a thing or two about who runs the joint."

"Trust me on this, Pinny! This is one maniacal ruler you do NOT want to mess with!" Geary cries in fear. "He threatened to blow up the earth long before you did!"

"Silence, you two!" shouts Oxide. "Our leader, the most accomplished racer in the entire galaxy, approaches."

A triumphant fanfare plays. A large set of doors swing open as Real Velo enters the room and approaches his throne with everyone looking on. Geary is practically shaking with fear as Pinstripe watches wide-eyed. Real Velo stops in front of his throne and turns to face Pinstripe and Geary.

"Greetings, my loyal subjects!" Real Velo calls out. "Bow before me!"

Pinstripe snickers before collapsing into hysterics as he approaches Real Velo.

"You serious, Oxide? This is your ruler? This little shrimp here?" Pinstripe asks before sarcastically continuing. "Ooohhh, I'm really scared! Somebody help me!"

"Pinstripe, what are you doing?!" Geary asks in a panic. "Don't piss him off!"

"Boo-hoo-hoo! Oh, I'm so frightened!" Pinstripe mockingly says. "I want my mommy! Wah! Wah! Wah-wah-wah—"

Suddenly, Pinstripe's glee quickly turns to fear as he hears the sound of loud, rumbling footsteps.

"Of course, I didn't mean me." Real Velo chuckles. "I meant the big guy."

Geary gasps in horror and says, "You don't mean..."

Everyone, including Oxide, reacts in shock and fear as they witness the "big guy" entering the room with pounding footsteps. The large shadow of the "big guy" falls over Pinstripe and Geary, who are shaking with absolute fear while Real Velo smugly grins at the pair.

"Oh, heaven help me." Pinstripe whimpers.

_**TO BE CONTINUED...**_


End file.
